


Atomic Omens

by bookmarksorganization



Series: These are the days—it never rains but it pours [1]
Category: Atomic Blonde (2017), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 1980s, Angel/Demon Murder, Angst, Aziraphale and Crowley will both be fine don't worry, BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), Canon Compliant, Crossover, Crowley Gets To Do Spy Shit, Crowley has a bad week, Crowley has memories of Heaven, Female-Presenting Crowley (Good Omens), First Time, Like It Could Be Maybe, Male-Presenting Crowley (Good Omens), Mostly Canon Compliant, No Beta, Other, Slow Burn, What Happens in Berlin Stays in Berlin, You don't need to have seen Atomic Blonde for this, angels and demons don't have refractory periods, brief emetophobia cw for chapter 10, happy-ish ending, some of the baddies are sexist, supernatural entities who mess with Crowley have considerably worse weeks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:48:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21860077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookmarksorganization/pseuds/bookmarksorganization
Summary: It's Atomic Blonde (which you don't need to have seen), but it's Good Omens. Basically: it's a spy story set in 1989 Berlin feat. Crowley as the femme fatale main character.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: These are the days—it never rains but it pours [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1631380
Comments: 16
Kudos: 27





	1. Blue Monday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snowball fight ends badly. Crowley is tired.

_In November 1989, after 28 years, the Berlin Wall came down and the Cold War ended._

_This is not that story._

* * *

**Berlin - November 1989**

* * *

In the snow, before dawn, the world was blue. And a woman (well, a woman-shaped occult entity) was running from something.

She scaled a wall, easily. Ran through an alleyway and came upon a locked metal gate. With impossible strength, she pulled, twisted it beneath her hands until she could slip through.

It led out onto another street, beyond which flowed the Spree. She turned to look behind her.

And didn’t see the Audi in time. 

The impact of the vehicle sent her into another parked car. 

She struggled to her feet, but the car surged forward again, pinning her there for moments. Then, it reversed. She collapsed.

The driver’s side door opened, and an angel stepped out.

He said, “Hello, Istasha.”

“Jeremiel, Heaven’s Fucking Gatekeeper. How did you find me?”

“Maybe you’re not as good at this spy shit as you think.”

“It was Satchel, wasn’t it? Satchel gave me up,” she said, bitterly. She pulled herself upright against the Audi’s bumper. Stared up at the angel. In the headlights, she was smiling. “I always thought if I got tagged it would be by the best. But, you’re not the best, are you Jeremiel? You’re the biggest fucking cunt in the Host.”

Jeremiel held up a hand, and with a twist of his wrist, he pulled a snowball from the air.

“Do not be afraid,” he intoned, as Istasha yelled a shocked

“Wha–”

and he threw it at her

and she was screaming.

As Istasha went extinct (holy water froze just like any water did), Jeremiel hastily bent down and grabbed her wrist. He pulled off the watch.

He stared at the puddle, for a minute or two, then walked away.

* * *

**London - 10 Days Later**

* * *

Crowley surfaced in the bath to take an unnecessary breath. He pulled his knees to his chest, and stared, unfocused, across the room. He was tired. More tired than he’d been in decades. He got to his feet.

Summoning a tumbler of whiskey, he sat against the edge of his tub. Like all the other rooms in his flat, the city view through the floor-to-ceiling windows was spectacular. Mayfair was quite a contrast to East Berlin.

Crowley finished the whiskey. He drew another deep, shaking breath, trying to settle his pulse.

At his vanity, he took in his reflection. All healed, of course. The damage done in the previous days was magicked away, but he still felt it, between the layers of his skin.

_Shit._

He pulled open a drawer, rummaged around. There it was. A Polaroid of him and Tash, smiling and stupid. Flames curled around his fingers and the photo twisted, charred. So much for that bit of sentimentality. Better to not chance it.

With a gesture, he was clothed. 

No more avoiding it.

Bowie played forlornly on the drive over. Crowley had picked up the “Cat People” single at some kiosk in Tegel airport. It suited his mood. Dour and dourer. 

At head office, they directed him down a (damp, stinking, de riguer) corridor to a meeting room.

Beelzebub and Uriel were inside. Crowley took a seat at the table, as did Beelzebub. Uriel remained standing. A long look passed between her and Crowley. It wasn’t friendly.

 _”No,”_ Beelzebub said, emphatically.

“Arselicker,” Crowley muttered.

“What did you say?” Uriel said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Fucking–did you say something, Crowley?” Beelzebub said.

“Did you hear me say something?”

“I thought you said something,” Uriel said.

Beelzebub looked back over zir shoulder, “What did he say?”

Uriel glared, silent.

Beelzebub turned back to Crowley, smirking.

Crowley shrugged. “Shall we begin?”

“What happened?” ze asked.

“Yeah,” Crowley sighed. “Berlin.” 

He leaned back in the chair, stretched his arms out. He was going to be here for a while.

 _”Fuck,”_ he began.


	2. 'Cause we don't know the game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old enemies work together. Feral demons pedal Jordache. Where's a certain angel, in all of this?

* * *

**The Beginning**

* * *

Crowley walked into a filthy office. He'd been called in. Short notice.

"Lord Beelzebub," he began, and then stopped. Because as expected, Beelzebub sat at zir desk, but fuck, heaven and earth, _Uriel_ was parked in a chair, reading a newspaper. 

"Crowley," Beelzebub said. "You know Uriel."

Why was an angel in Hell? This was new. When did Hell manage anything new? What was wrong? Something had to be, didn't it, for her to be here? What had happened? 

He hadn't seen her in 6000 years.

"Mmph," he said. He slid into the remaining chair.

"Crowley, you're our best agent on earth. You've got... an impressive skillset, blah blah. Anyway–"

"And knowing Jeremiel like I do," Uriel said. "You'll need every damn one of them."

"Shut the fuck up and let me finisZzh," Beelzebub buzzed. "You absolute knob."

Crowley's didn't bother to hide his smile. A real one. This wasn't too bad, so far.

"Anyway, Crowley, how well do you know Istasha?" 

Crowley shrugged, careful to not give anything away. "Well enough to say hello, I suppose. We worked together in Istanbul, well, in Constantinople, in... would've been 1885?"

"She's dead," Uriel said.

Oh. Oh, _Tash_.

"Istasha was made extinct last night while on a mission for us in Berlin," Beelzebub said. "Another agent of ours found what was left on the road by the Spree this morning. Holy water, of course."

"Nice little light for your halo," Crowley said to Uriel. Why was she here?

"Yesterday, Istasha met with a Stasi officer, Yuri Bakhtin, codenamed Spyglass," Beelzebub continued. "She was posing as MI6, tempting Spyglass with the promise of immunity in exchange for a document on... m... microwave..."

"Microfilm," Uriel said.

"Fuck off. I know." Beelzebub adjusted a cufflink. "On microfilm. Codenamed The List."

"Hidden–"

"HIDDEN IN A SWIzZ WATCH."

Uriel sighed. Beelzebub glowered at her.

"The list contains every active clandestine agent, occult or ethereal, currently stationed on Earth," Uriel said. "All their unholy and holy dealings. It's an apocalyptic amount of information, and could start The Great War ahead of schedule. Neither side wants that to happen, after this much planning. Hence my presence. We believe the angel that killed Istasha now has it. Follow up I've done on the matter points out an angel named Jeremiel as a likely suspect."

"Jeremiel?" Crowley cut in. This was too much. "Since when would he do field work? I thought Jeremiel was an archangel. Management."

"There were some re-orgs about a millenia ago. The decision was made to reassign some of the heavenly host to different departments. Jeremiel was deemed more effective as an individual contributor."

"Jeremiel is a miserable git," Beelzebub said. "You ever work with him?" ze asked Crowley. 

Crowley shook his head. "N–not really. He was working on... souls, that whole thing. Didn't really run into each other."

"Well, I knew him, and he was a git. So you all get tired of him, try to send him off somewhere. How long he been on earth for?"

"Seventy years," Uriel said. She didn't argue the other points.

"Seventy years. No more nice desk job. CaszZt out, basically. But he's an angel, so obviously he thinks he'z too good for us. Too good to Fall. So he goes rogue. What a meszZ you've made."

Things quieted.

"So I'm to go to Berlin," Crowley said.

"You'll go and link up with our Number One there. Percival," Beelzebub said. "They're your point of contact."

* * *

**Meanwhile,**

* * *

Beneath the skeletal concrete of a half-finished building in East Berlin, Percival took a drag from a cigarette and screamed at the assembled crowd, "–ist offen! Geld is gut. Informationen ist besser." Their German was a conceptual interpretation, of sorts. It worked fine. "Und du? Was hast Du für mich?"

A man with hair glued into spikes laid out a spread of photos. Percival produced a bottle of Jack Daniels. "Straight from the tit of the Virgin Mary," they intoned. A deal.

The crowd skewed young, punk. A middle-aged man in a trench coat, carrying a briefcase, stood out to an uncomfortable degree. Yuri Bakhtin, aka Spyglass, walked up to a makeshift bar. Percival joined him, slammed down a pair of jeans and another bottle of Jack onto the counter. 

"The Jordache wasn't easy," they said.

Bakhtin hastily scooped up the items, putting them into his briefcase. "It's for my wife's birthday."

"That's really nice. Now, where's that fucking list?"

The man seemed confused by the question. "I gave the microfilm to Tasha last night."

"Iz didn't show up."

"I did my part. I gave her the list. You have to get me and my family across. It's not safe for us anymore here. The Russians are onto me."

"No list, no deal."

Percival watched confusion become fear, hurt. "I risked everything." Bakhtin said.

"No list, no deal." they repeated, and took a step forward, menace behind it, shrinking the space between them. "You listen to me, Spyglass. Without that list, why shouldn't I take you outside and shoot you in the fucking head?"

"You are going to kill a Stasi officer?" he asked, incredulous.

"One that's about to defect to the West?" They grinned. "Yeah."

* * *

"Without proper oversight, your Percival has gone somewhat native," Uriel said.

"Gone fucking feral. Still gets the job done, though, don't they. Not my problem how, long as I can crozZ it off the liZzt," Beelzebub said. 

"Well if _this_ list is in the wrong hands, we're all..." Uriel trailed off.

"Buggered sideways." 

"Quite."

"Go to Berlin. Connect with Percival. Do whatever it takes to get that list home," Beelzebub told Crowley.

"And remember," Uriel added. "This is highly sensitive."

* * *

A blare of sirens cut through the music and shouting. People began to scatter.

"Follow me!" Percival yelled to Bakhtin. "Come, come, come." The man who'd been tending the bar, a slim and fashionable sort, also went with them. They reached an edge of the space. 

The bartender checked a hallway ahead. "Quickly! This way," he said.

Percival ran past with Bakhtin close behind—his gait was clumsy and halting. 

"Tell me you made a copy," Percival said, not slowing down.

"I memorized it."

"Memorized it? Every single agent on that list?"

"Every Wednesday you visit the Penny Lane brothel. Your favorite girl is Margot. Her real name is Maria."

They stopped, facing each other.

"Maria?" Percival said.

Bhaktin tapped his temple.

"Alright, I'll get you across." 

"You are a good person, Percival."

"Fuck off," they spat. They turned to round a left out of the graffiti'd corridor. "I just want the list. Once I've–oh fuck." A Stasi car was parked outside, with its lights on. Two officers stood in front.

"Halt!" 

"I'll be in touch," Bhaktin said, trundling off in the other direction with his suitcase.

Percival stood there, "Uh…” Watched Bhaktin make his escape. Then, quick on the uptake, they took a few faltering steps forward.

“Guten abbend, leute!” They pulled their wallet out of their back pocket. “Document. Document.” But, they stumbled, and the wallet fell out of their hands at the officers' feet. 

“Oh, gee!” 

They went down to pick it up, and from their position beneath the men, punched the closest officer in the nuts. He doubled over. And then Percival was on their feet, backhanding the other one. From there, they punched the first officer in the bend of the arm. Kicked Officer #2 in the stomach. Cold cocked him. Back to #1, threw him to the ground. Struck him in the temple, knocking his hat off.

Both officers were down. Percival picked the hat up, put their wallet between their teeth, and went for the other man’s coat.

It wasn’t long before the car, now ablaze, rolled past the rest of the Stasi, who opened fire. It crashed into a wall with a whoosh of flame, and a uniformed Percival used the opportunity to disappear into a grate by a power main. Beneath the streets. They left the hat up top, but kept the coat.

* * *

**West Berlin**

* * *

In a stately Schöneberg apartment, beside a stack of books, a telephone rang.

Aziraphale frowned. Who could possibly have a reason to call him? Who had this number? Only one person he was aware of. He picked up the handset.

“Yes?” he said, still cautious.

“I’m coming to Berlin,” Crowley said.

“What? Oh. Do you need me to handle something here?”

“No, I have to come. There’s a lot, angel. Too much to talk about right now. Just, be careful.”

That seemed ominous.

“When do you arrive?” Aziraphale asked.

“Should be in at Tempelhof around 11:00 tomorrow, won’t have time to catch up, though. Not until I sort out my orders.”

“You’re being very cryptic, my dear fellow.” He didn't like it.

“Sorry. I know. Look, I’ll explain, soon. We’ll talk later. Be careful,” Crowley said, again. The line clicked. He'd hung up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bartender is [ Disposable Demon](https://shesnake.tumblr.com/post/186878772246/paul-adeyefa-in-good-omens-2019-dir-douglas) and we love him.


	3. Völlig losgelöst von der Erde

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley arrives in Berlin. Percival is a shitty tour guide. A boombox is used to grievous effect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crowley switches between genders in this story, and pronouns change accordingly.

Before the flight, Crowley had slipped into a different gender. It had been a bit, and she was less recognizable in a feminine form. Well, during the last few centuries, anyway.

In the air, she stared, bored, as vodka from one of those tiny 50ml bottles slithered around the ice in her glass. She downed it. 

Air travel. Hell of a thing. Tons of potential. Crowley considered it. Make the seats a little smaller. Add a bit more process at the gate. For security purposes, of course. All those people, waiting on flights. She could feel greed wrapped around the columns of the terminals. Could feel the exhaustion of the workers, who never saw any kickback from the price-gouged food and drink and souvenirs they pushed. It was a warmth that ran through her limbs. Slow it all down a little more. Stoke impatience into frustration. She’d have to revisit it, after this was over. Maybe manage another commendation if she did something properly clever. The M25 had ended up as a huge hit downstairs, once the evil started oozing out.

Aziraphale was in Berlin. Had been since ‘73. And now Crowley was going there. _Officially._

They hadn’t seen much of each other after the holy water, during the five years that followed. And then Aziraphale had asked to meet in Battersea Park and told him that upstairs had passed down what was expected to be a long-term assignment. He’d looked nervous. More nervous than usual. Crowley understood. London had become his home. He was worried about the bookshop, about the change. Crowley had offered to keep an eye on it for him and watched Aziraphale melt with relief. (“Oh, would you? Oh–thank you.” “No problem, angel.”)

Crowley had Aziraphale’s number and would call him once or twice a year to let him know all remained well. They’d make small talk. Though the calls were brief, it was more frequent than they’d ever spoken before. Sometimes Aziraphale sounded tired. Sometimes Crowley would say something that would make him laugh. Sometimes the calls were quiet, companionable, and Crowley would relax into those minutes. Content.

It would be good to see him again, but it set Crowley’s teeth on edge, how close the angel was to all of this. They’d used to run into each other by accident in unexpected places, centuries ago. It hadn’t been cause for suspicion then. But now, she wondered what God was playing at. 

If there was something ineffable at play, she hoped it left them both alone.

* * *

The sound of an alarm pulled Percival back to reality. They un-belted their arm from the bar of the bed’s headboard and crawled out from between the two sleeping women. They pressed a kiss to the top of Lulu’s head. 

“Oh, I’m so fucking late.” they said, and sighed.

* * *

****

**West Berlin**

* * *

_Welcome to Tempelhof International Airport._ a P.A. intoned.

Crowley could feel a supernatural presence a short distance away as she exited to the street. She glanced in the direction it was coming from–

“Miss Crowley.”

She stopped short and inspected the man in front of her. Human.

“Percival was running late and sent me to pick you up,” he said. He gestured to her small rolling suitcase with the large purse on top of it. “Checked bags?”

Something was off.

“No, they’ve been sent,” she said.

He nodded and reached out to take her luggage. “Please. Follow me.” 

Crowley looked to her left, where she’d felt the presence. Sure enough, it was Aziraphale, in one of a row of yellow phone booths across the way. Stupid angel. She followed the man.

A second human got out of the car as they approached and took the bags to stow. The first man got in the driver’s seat. Crowley hesitated for a moment and peered behind her to catch one more view of Aziraphale. This time he noticed her looking and straightened slightly. Crowley got into the car fighting a smile.

The man sitting beside her wore a gun in a chest holster. He pulled his jacket closed when he realized she’d seen it.

“So,” said the driver. “Is this your first time in Berlin?”

“Yes.” 

“Well, it’s a remarkable time to be here.”

In the driver side wing mirror, a Porsche was swerving behind them. They were being followed.

“Wonderful music, superb nightlife, marvelous restaurants.” The driver flicked a card from one of the sun visors and passed it back to her. “You must try the Central Cafe for a drink,” he said, then, with meaning, “You’ll need it later.”

Their car sped into a tunnel. Crowley tensed and adjusted her sunglasses. 

“You remember Mr. Jeremiel, don’t you?”

The man beside her, who hadn’t said a word yet, looked at her. Why did they have to use humans for their dirty work?

“Of course you do,” the driver continued.

Crowley leaned forward delicately and slipped off one of her heels. She held it with her palm wrapped around the sole, so that the spike of the shoe would cross over the back of her hand.

“Well, he’s very curious what you’re doing in Berlin.”

Crowley drove the spike of the heel into the throat of the man beside her. Not hard enough to puncture skin, but hard enough to _really fucking hurt._ Over and over.

The car swerved as the driver tried to reach back. Crowley hit him with the shoe as well and then grabbed the gun pulled by the man next to her. It fired into the car roof. They wrestled for it as it continued to go off. She knocked it to the floor and swung an elbow into his throat, slamming him back into the side window. The glass cracked, a smear of red at the center. She pressed his head against it as she went for the door handle. 

The man tried to push her away, but she pulled the handle and the door swung open and he fell halfway out. 

Now the driver had a gun. Crowley grabbed it as she aimed a kick at the man in the back's face, trying to dislodge him while he clung to the seat. 

The Porsche was still behind them.

Their car was lurching back and forth as she fought with the driver. 

The other man tried to climb back in again and she kicked him with more force. He went flying. His body skidded across the pavement and the Porsche swerved around it.

Crowley twisted the driver’s arm, getting it up under her own. He got a shot off, but then she wrenched the gun out of his hand and drove her elbow into his face. He cried out. She elbowed him again.

She snapped her seatbelt free and pulled herself halfway into the front seat, over him. She gripped the steering wheel. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” the driver yelled.

She yanked, hard, and then flung herself backwards. She grabbed hold of her unfastened seat belt and clung.

They hit a roadblock at full speed and flipped. 

The Porsche swung to a stop with a screech. Percival got out (they were still wearing the Stasi coat) and walked over. 

A single red heel lay on the road. They picked it up and approached the upside-down vehicle, with caution. Glass was everywhere. There was smoke. They leaned down.

“Welcome to Berlin, I’m P–”

They jerked out of the way and the bullet hit a column.

“Where the fuck were you?” said Crowley, now lying on the ruined ceiling, gun pointed, incensed.

“Don’t shoot. I’ve–I’ve got your shoe.”

The heel appeared in the window. A peace offering.

Once she crawled out, Crowley put her shoe back on and Percival worked on getting the driver free of the wreckage.

“Let me help you with your bags,” they said, popping the now-upside down and elevated trunk. Her bags tumbled to her feet with a thunk. Percival grabbed the unconscious man again. “Come on.”

Crowley watched them haul him across the pavement. “Fuck's sake,” she said.

“Russians are fucking heavy,” Percival grunted.

She grabbed her bags and followed. “Five minutes on the ground and I’m already made.” 

Crowley opened the Porsche’s boot and Percival tossed the driver in.

“You’re not made. I hope.”

“They knew my name.”

“That’s troubling.” The two of them stood over the man.

“And yours.”

“That’s hardly surprising.”

The driver came to and tried to sit up. Crowley knocked him out with a precise jab.

“Great fucking start, Percival.”

* * *

****

**After all of it, Beelzebub's office**

* * *

Uriel leaned forward. “So, what was your first impression?”

“Of Percival? Well...” He grimaced. “Disastrous Sinéad O’Connor hair.”

Nobody got the reference.

“Irish singer,” Crowley said. “I asked them what the deal was with that and they said, ‘It’s to blend in.’”

* * *

“Want to touch it? It’s to blend in, in the East.”

The Porsche was weaving through space, tires squealing as it fit through gaps that would make The Laws of Physics blush. Hell’s sake, Percival drove like Crowley did. If Crowley had no style. This was... she grit her teeth. This was a mess.

“That was the Brandenburg Gate, by the way. I mean, how the fuck do the suits think that you’re going to be able to help me find that list? That’s Checkpoint Charlie. My office is just back there.”

“I’m not here to collect postcards, Percival. Just drop me at my hotel. It’s around the corner.”

“I thought you said you’d never been to Berlin before.” they said, smugly.

Crowley sighed, “I can read a fucking map.”

Percival chuckled. “This’ll just take a minute.”

After a couple of minutes, they lurched to a halt outside the offices of the Soviet Trade Mission. Percival sprung out and went round to retrieve the driver from the boot.

Crowley got out as well, watching them. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Sending a message to that fascist pig.” 

Percival deposited the driver out in front. The man moaned and they grabbed him by his tie, “Say hello to Comrade Jeremiel for me,” before delivering one final, vicious punch.

Crowley had done the math by now, and as they drove back to her hotel she questioned Percival.

“So Jeremiel is a... KGB boss?” If Heaven had known, Uriel would have mentioned it. It was too pertinent of a detail to leave out for the sake of spite.

“Yep,” Percival said. “He’s got himself set up as an arms dealer and Russian operative. Lackeys aplenty.”

Crowley frowned. She hated it, when they used humans that way. It was too direct, too personal. She wasn’t sure if she’d killed the other man back in the tunnel. It wouldn’t have been the first time by an aeons-long shot, but it would have been the first time in centuries. That stuff was best kept between humans, if you asked her. Sex, death, all of it. She’d done it all, for many reasons: work, curiosity, loneliness, self-protection, anger. But, well, it was weird, right? 

Direct infernal intervention: best avoided. 

Leave the humans to each other.

* * *

****

**Back in the East**

* * *

Jeremiel set the boombox down. Stasi and KGB flanked a line of kneeling partygoers from the night before.

In German, he said “Well, what do we have here?”

“Jeremiel,” an officer said. “We caught them partying last night.”

“East Germany’s best and brightest,” Jeremiel said. He pointed at one youth, a young man in sweats. “You there. Step forward.” When the man hesitated, Jeremiel yelled, “I said, step forward! Come here.”

Jeremiel noticed a skateboard beside him. He kicked it up into his hands and held it, consideringly. He spun the wheels, turned it over a few times, before lowering it to his side. He addressed the kneeling group, “So you want to have fun? Let’s have fun.”

He walked back to the boombox. “What do we have here?” He pressed play.

_-roßes Feuerwerk  
Die Nachbarn haben nichts gerafft  
Und fühlten sich gleich angemacht  
Dabei schoss man am Horizont  
Auf 99 Luftballons_

Jeremiel turned back to the group and lifted his hands in a small _see?_ gesture. To the young man, he said: “C’mon, dance for me.” 

When he hesitated, Jeremiel said, “The music is on.”

The young man tried to do a break-dance step and mostly managed it but fumbled the close and ended up lying on his back as Jeremiel stood over him. He struggled to his feet.

“Give him a round of applause!” said the angel. Scared, tentative claps echoed off the concrete. 

Jeremiel struck him across the face with the skateboard. Blood arced into the air and the man collapsed.

Jeremiel kicked him in the stomach and then brought the skateboard down, again and again.

_99 Kriegsminister_

“There was a man here last night–”

_Streichholz und Benzinkanister_

“-a traitor!”

_Hielten sich für schlaue Leute_

“Tell me where he is!”

_Riefen, „Krieg!“, und wollten Macht  
Mann, wer hätte das gedacht?  
Dass es einmal so weit kommt  
_

The hits continued to land. Sickening and wet. The man at the angel's feet was still.

_Wegen 99–_

Jeremiel stomped the boombox into pieces. He kicked it away.

One of the KGB stepped forward and Jeremiel turned to him, switching to Russian “Where is Bakhtin? Where is the list?”

“He never showed, Comrade Jeremiel.”

“Capitalist bastard, he’s gonna sell the list. Find him! I want that list. Boris, give me that photo.”

Jeremiel walked back over to the kneeling captives, past the dying man, and held the picture of Bhaktin up for all to see.

“Pay attention,” he said in German. “This man is a traitor. Do you know him?"

* * *

In her hotel room, all blue and pink neon, Crowley sat on her round bed and lit a cigarette. The TV was on.

_Tensions are high in East Berlin tonight as civil disobedience continues to build momentum. East Berlin’s youth leaders shout out their protests through tear gas and water cannons, and there are numerous reports of police beating peaceful demonstrators with batons._

* * *

“Do you know those movies where the picture just starts to slow down... and melt. Then catch fire?” Crowley asked Beelzebub and Uriel. 

“Well.” He was quiet, for a moment.“That’s Berlin.”


	4. And I still find it so hard to say what I need to say

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale worries. Crowley sightsees and sleeps poorly. Percival has a different definition of collaboration.

In his apartment, Aziraphale un-pinned a set of finished photographs. A soft miracled light shone above him. He was barely paying attention.

Crowley was in Berlin. For reasons she hadn’t elaborated on, which was, well, reasonable enough, he supposed. 

They were on opposite sides. They didn’t go around discussing work with each other except when it was pertinent to The Arrangement, or, if they were having a drink and one of them had a particularly good story, or something. Nonetheless, it didn’t sit right.

He’d been stuck in Berlin for close to two decades, and he was hardly oblivious to things having reached a boiling point in these past few weeks. It was obvious why she was here. 

And that concerned him: his closest associate on Earth being in the middle of all this. And he wasn’t ready, to see the demon. He also wanted to see her immediately. He wanted Crowley to call him and suggest they go somewhere nice and catch up. 

It hadn’t been that long since they’d last spoken. Crowley had called him a few months back to update him on the bookshop.

And then the day just before last, far sooner than expected, to say that she was coming here.

Jeremiel had killed a demon—not just discorporated, but _destroyed_. It wasn’t done.

The humans had their Geneva Conventions, but Heaven and Hell had a Rule of War, just one, that was older than the planet itself. It was understood that now was a time of preparation, according to The Great Plan. The real score, and their unresolved animosities within, would be settled in the war that followed, when they’d face each other in battle with equal numbers.

Certainly, demons and angels discorporated each other all the time. Hazards of doing business, or some other human expression. Once or twice, rumor had even reached Heaven of Hell destroying one of their own–there was no Falling from Hell, after all. But, the two sides didn’t destroy each other. That was for another time. A time still to come.

Aziraphale didn’t like to think about it, or how he was quite aware that nearly 6000 years were already past. He was a Principality. He wouldn’t just be expected to fight; he’d have a whole platoon. 

Aziraphale wasn’t a soldier anymore. He was a guardian, and a bookseller, and a compassionate steward to humanity. He’d embraced his role on Earth whole-heartedly, where he chose to be gentle, and to be Good in the way he knew Good was meant to be.

Of course, Jeremiel had fixated on his heavenly rank from the moment they’d met again, when Aziraphale had arrived in the city. To the former-archangel, _Principality_ might as well be shortened to _thug_. Aziraphale didn’t report to him, they worked in parallel, but he shuddered to think of what he would have been asked to do if he did.

Jeremiel was a bad angel. Aziraphale didn’t understand how he hadn’t Fallen. It stirred up a lot of questions that he had to distract himself from mulling over. And he’d killed a demon with holy water. Crowley being anywhere near him made Aziraphale very, very concerned.

Aziraphale had spent well over a hundred years thinking about Crowley and holy water. Their worst, and only, fight. He’d kept himself busy through the rest of the twentieth century, and the wars that came after, til Crowley walked into a church and saved his life and saved his books, and something in Aziraphale bloomed. He loved the demon, hopelessly and utterly. 

And Crowley had still wanted holy water. And Aziraphale couldn’t bear the idea of Crowley putting himself in danger, so he’d done the unthinkable: given it to him. 

That should have been that, not discounting the century of heartbreak and personal revelation. If his heart had been made of glass, which it wasn’t, he’d sat in the Bentley and given Crowley a hammer. But, the actual heart in his chest, made of star-stuff—to reference Sagan, and his empyrean core existing beyond this plane of reality—they both would shatter just as easily. It already held cracks from the past hundred-plus years. Aside from his bookshop, Aziraphale had almost welcomed the escape from London.

Crowley was in Berlin, and Aziraphale was worried.

* * *

Crowley took a taxi out to Kreuzberg and then pulled up power to blink herself into Mitte. She appeared a few blocks away from the cross streets Percival had given her yesterday, when they’d dropped her off at her hotel. She was afraid she’d mistarget things and somehow land on the single square meter in the city truly hazardous to her health, so, she’d opted for a short walk.

She could feel the buzz in the back of her teeth as she approached where the holy water had dried. She carefully stepped around it. Tash had died here.

She remembered meeting her, back in what was now Istanbul. 

Crowley had been how Crowley always was when Hell was around: withholding, sleazy, ingratiating. In return and instead of the usual disdain and suspicion he'd get kicked back his way, Tash had been… attentive. She had paid attention to everything.

Crowley had just shaken off a century-long nap and was unhappy, to put it mildly, about being sent all the way across Europe just to mess with railway construction. He was unhappy about Aziraphale, wherever Aziraphale was, which was in his bookshop in Soho, because Crowley had checked (covertly). He was unhappy about being stuck with another demon around to cramp his style.

Istasha had met him at the base of Galata Tower. She was cat-like, and wore thick spectacles to mask her eyes, similar to, but different from the darkened lenses Crowley favored. Her nails didn’t quite make sense for how they fit on her human-looking hand. And she’d smelled fine. And her clothes had been clean. Weird, from a fellow demon.

She'd been thrilled about being in Constantinople, and between carrying out their respective tasks, she'd kept inviting Crowley to go do things.

He’d demurred, at first, but eventually he’d gone along with it, when she’d asked for a fourth or fifth time. Mostly because he’d been worried she’d take offense if he kept refusing. They’d gone for coffee, and Istasha had talked about the architecture while they walked along the Grande Rue de Péra. 

There had been a lot of buildings under construction, and she'd spoken about what things used to be. She’d been there back during the Fourth Crusade, and as she’d talked about the changes, of the history, even what people were doing now, she'd showed genuine interest. Curiosity. Admiration, even.

And Crowley had thought _Oh, you really are different._

Percival was different, too. Not in a good way.

Crowley decided to walk back to her hotel, once she returned to The West. She missed the Bentley.

When she got back to her room, she turned the water on for a shower and disrobed. She hesitated, feeling skittish. This water wasn’t going to do anything other than calm her nerves, she told herself, stepping under it.

It didn’t manage that, either.

She'd pulled her shirt and underwear back on, and was walking out of the bathroom when she felt the other demon in the room. She couldn’t see them from the doorway, so they had to be against the next wall, around the corner.

She glanced about, her gaze landing on an empty Stolichnaya bottle. She picked it up very carefully, quietly. She slinked forward. 

She threw herself around the corner and smashed the bottle over Percival’s head. They brought their arms up, a newspaper floating to the ground, and Crowley punched them where their kidneys should be, several times. She grabbed them and flung them onto the bed. She straddled them, one hand on their shoulder and the other at their throat.

Percival somehow hadn’t lost the cigarette between their lips.

“I’m not going to lie, I’m impressed,” Crowley said. “You’ve got some balls breaking in here.”

“You should see my balls, then you’d be really impressed.”

“Hmm. I’ll take your word for it. Why the fuck are you in my room?”

“You know, I’ve been in Berlin a long time and I think I know every doorman of every decent shithouse, borderline decent flophouse, both sides of the wall.” 

“Great. Well, then you must know Spyglass.”

Percival smiled around their cigarette. “Never met the fellow. He belonged to Iz.”

They regarded each other.

“You know if I was to follow you, properly, you’d never fucking know,” they said.

Crowley moved her hand off of their throat and took the cigarette out of their mouth. She made it look luxurious, languorous, while internally, she noted the threat.

“There’s a knack to it, isn’t there?” Percival continued. “It’s like walking a tightrope or playing the bagpipe, you can either do it or you can’t.”

Crowley inhaled a long drag. “Knock yourself out,” she whispered, and blew smoke into their face. She climbed off.

Percival left, after that, and Crowley concentrated for several minutes, making sure they’d well and truly fucked off. 

That was the thing. A sudden miracle, or presence of an occult entity right by you and of course you’d notice. Wouldn’t have to try. But, get a bit further away, and it was something you had to look for. And it required concentration, to the exclusion of whatever else might be going on. It was bloody difficult and inconvenient.

But Crowley knew, no power required, how to keep an eye on her environment. Percival wouldn’t just have to be smart metaphysically, they’d have to be decent at regular earthly stealth, which no demons or angels ever were. Well, Tash had been. And Percival probably was, too, if they’d been confident enough to make that boast.

Still, it wasn’t something she could do anything about, not yet. No, she had to wait and see what the demon was going to do. Great. Perfect.

After nightfall, she went out to Tauentzienstraße. The old church she passed was lovely enough, but the sound of the cathedral bells made her cringe. She shoved her hands deeper into her coat pockets and picked up the pace.

Down below a more modern building, she walked through a mall. Most of the shopfronts had been closed for the day, but ahead of her, a watchmaker remained open. She let herself in, closing the door behind her.

Crowley peered into the display case. “I’d like to purchase a watch,” she said.

The store owner, who sat off to her left behind a gilded partition, looked up.

She lowered her voice, “I need access to a network in East Berlin.”

After a moment, the watchmaker said, “Come back tomorrow, before closing.”

* * *

****

**Crowley dreamt.**

* * *

_East Berlin is on a short fuse again tonight as Communist Party officials struggle to maintain order._

_“How well do you know Istasha?”_

Light from the stage colored the rims of her spectacles blue, and gold. Crowley could only see her profile. She wasn’t smiling. “You need to be careful, Crowley." 

_“Another agent of ours found what was left on the road by the Spree this morning. Holy water, of course.”_

Tash took a sip of her drink—vodka on the rocks. Her usual. 

_”We know who Satchel is.”_

She looked back over her shoulder, at Crowley. “You need to run.” 

* * *

Crowley woke up gasping for air. She didn’t try to sleep again. Instead, she sat in front of the TV til the sun was up, making a plan. 

It was time to visit Istasha’s place. 

* * *

It was in a nice, if poorly maintained, complex back in Kreuzberg, five flights up. The door was closed with police tape, but a demonic miracle popped it open, along with the lock, and she went inside.

The apartment had been trashed. Papers were thrown everywhere. Furniture was overturned. Crowley walked past a very healthy colocasia in a stylish concrete pot and found that her eyes were suddenly stinging. Tash had kept it alive. It had gotten huge.

“Some help you were,” she hissed at it. She blinked, a few times. Get it together.

* * *

**Hell: Debriefing**

* * *

“You were expecting to find The LizzzZt at Istasha’s apartment?” Beelzebub asked.

“You realize you were late to the party.” Uriel said. “Percival, the Russians, everybody must have already ransacked the place.”

“Yes,” Crowley said. “But, The List wasn’t the only problem. Before I left, I’d been told one last thing. I don’t understand why you insisted on Uriel being here for this, Lord Beelzebub.”

Beelzebub squirmed, uncomfortable. “Juszzt come out with it,” ze said.

“Alright. Before I left, Lord Beelzebub told me one last thing: Spyglass revealed that this list would expose a double agent by the name of Satchel.”

(Ze had shown up in his apartment, after he’d gotten home from that first meeting ten days ago. “I want Satchel, dead or alive.” ze’d said. “This traitor’s been a thorn in our side for yearsZzz. They’re an insult to our unholy power, and the szZZingle biggest intelligence leak in our history. You expose this bastard SzZZzatchel, and we’ll destroy them for treason. You might find yourself having tea with Satan before all thiszz is over.”)

“So no, I wasn’t just looking for the list in Istasha’s apartment.”

* * *

Crowley nudged a shattered picture frame with her boot, then bent down to pick it up.

The photo showed Istasha and Percival. Clothes placed it at the start of this decade. Percival’s hair was longer, still atrocious. They were in the woods, somewhere. They each held a dead hare up; rifles were cradled in their arms. Crowley scowled, but then she heard a screech of tires that snapped her head up.

She set the photo on a dresser and hurried through the apartment’s double doors, onto the balcony that faced the building’s inner courtyard. She looked down.

West Berlin police cars. Someone was banging on the outside door.

She dropped into a crouch, mind spinning. Hmm. There was a garden hose coiled to her right.

* * *

“Percival and I seem to have a different definition for collaboration.”

“What’s that suppozzzed to mean?” Beelzebub said.

“They were the only one who knew I was going to Istasha’s apartment. And if I’d known they were going to call the police, I’d have worn a different outfit.”

* * *

Crowley heard voices in the stairwell. She stepped back into the apartment, taking the hose with her. She walked over to the stereo and popped the tape that had been sitting on top of it into the deck. She hit play. George Michael. Huh, Tash.

_...all I wanted_  
_Just to see my baby's blue eyes shine_

* * *

“Different outfit?” Beelzebub didn't own different outfits.

“Not thigh highs boots and a skirt. At least they weren’t heels.”

* * *

_This time I think that my lover understands me_  
_If we have faith in each other then we can be strong, baby._

The first of the police edged past Crowley's hiding place, looking for the source of the music. She smacked him in the face with the hose, and lunged forward to pull the gun from his hand. Grabbing hold of him, she walked him out in front of her to where the other officers approached, using him as a shield.

_I will be your father figure_  
_Put your tiny hand in mine_  
_I will be your preacher teacher_  
_Anything you have in mind_

* * *

“Why do you keep fighting people? Why don’t you juszZt use your powers?”

Crowley sighed. “It was seven in the morning. Do you know how much power it takes to freeze people?”

Beelzebub frowned.

“Quite a bit, actually," Crowley said. "I didn’t want to pull on more than I needed to at that point in the day, not when there was an unhinged angel running loose and my supposed partner had just sold me out. Also, when you’re working with any humans you have to know who you can affect and who you can’t, because you might need to have someone conscious, or you might influence someone and confuse a detail and just bugger yourself without realizing it.“ 

Or put them in an asylum if you fuck up badly enough.

“There’s a reason both sides tend to do things the long way on earth,” she continued, shaking her head. “Anyway, it was fine, I jammed all their guns. Learned my lesson on that the hard way after the car chase.”

* * *

Crowley flung an officer down onto the glass coffee table, shattering it. The others tried to fire at her and she ran past them into the kitchen. They all looked down at their guns, confused. One pulled out a baton, and Crowley grabbed a pot off the stove and flung it. It struck him on the temple and then bounced over to the other officer and _somehow_ connected with the same spot. 

_I will be your father figure_  
_I have had enough of crime_  
_I will be the one who loves you_  
_Til the end of time_

She ran back out of the kitchen and into the living room again. Oh Satan, there were more. A bullet hit the doorframe. New ones. She pulled the hose out like a lasso and sent it around the colocasia. She turned and sprinted towards the double doors, the hose stretching behind her. She held tight to the end of it and dove off of the balcony.

The huge potted plant surged forward across the floor, causing several police to dive out of its path. It slid behind her as she fell through the air, and its heavy planter hit the railing with a clang. 

Crowley was jerked upwards and swung back onto the final balcony above the courtyard. She got to her feet and hopped down the rest of the way.

She made it a few steps before she heard 

“Hey! Halt!”

She stopped, and pulled the fabric of her turtleneck over her face.

As the officers flanked her, she landed a solid punch to one’s gut and then traded off strikes with both until she sent the first target stumbling backwards. She used the window of opportunity to take the other to the ground, before coming at the man still standing and throwing him down as well. She snatched his gun and knocked him out with it.

Crowley stood and hurried away. She yanked the neck of her shirt back down. What the _fuck_ , Percival?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale had read _The Cosmic Connection_ by Carl Sagan in 1973, it had reminded him of Crowley and he’d liked it very much.
> 
> Sagan wrote:
> 
> "Our Sun is a second- or third-generation star. All of the rocky and metallic material we stand on, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes were produced billions of years ago in the interior of a red giant star. We are made of star-stuff."


	5. Die Lebenslust bringt di um

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's a nice demon like Crowley doing in a bar like this?

_”With repeated calls for change on the streets and the protestors growing ever more confident, time is running out for the East German government.”_

Crowley opened her copy of _Shibumi_ by Trevanian. There were two rectangles cut through the pages, between which lay the components of a recorder.

She hadn’t-not thought of Aziraphale’s displeasure as she’d carved into the book. While the angel didn’t consider every book a sacred object, at a minimum, he would have been annoyed and would have called her dramatic.

_”Popular opinion has it that the Communists' claim to leadership can’t be upheld much longer.”_

She fit the body of the recorder into a band at her thigh and threaded the wire over her hip and into the center of her chest, taping it down.

_”And if rapid change is not forthcoming, today’s relatively calm protests could be seen as the calm before the storm.”_

She needed to make contact with Aziraphale; there just hadn’t been time. She’d been in Berlin for 48 hours and so far, things had been a non-stop shitshow. She was nervous, looping him into this. But, keeping him out was just as risky. Damned if you do, etc.

_“It’s not just new faces that are called for, but perhaps a complete demolition of the Wall.”_

* * *

Percival’s safehouse was located by the Wall, right up against the East where, as promised, the Brandenburg Gate loomed. Crowley rang the doorbell and waited to be buzzed in. Some kids were kicking a football around in the street. A Humvee was parked nearby. Punks were milling about further down from the building. Satan forbid a demon undercover attempt anything subtle.

The buzzer went off, and she entered a vestibule. Percival opened the inner door for her, with an “Mmm.” of acknowledgment. They were wearing a sweater vest, no shirt beneath, and dress slacks. Almost editorial.

Crowley stepped inside. 

“Let me take your coat,” they said. 

It was polite, but there was the implication of mistrust. Crowley reconsidered her stance on irony. She certainly didn’t like it from Percival. She let the moment linger, but then shrugged out of it and passed it to them.

They took it and walked further into… whatever the place could be considered. A safe-house. “Make yourself at home.”

It had the bones of a swank apartment. Open architecture, beautiful furniture, but every inch of the space had been filled with boxes. Crowley recognized Jack Daniel’s branding on some of the ones close by. What was intended as a dining room table was piled with ammo. They were surrounded by years of accumulation and preparation.

“Fucking heaven,” she whispered.

There was a bookcase further into the room. She walked over to it.

“You want a pair of jeans? Help yourself.”

History books, biographies, a very well-worn copy of _The Prince_ by Machiavelli. Niccolò had certainly found an enduring audience over the centuries. Crowley had been assigned to tempt him once, in Florence. As usual, nothing had needed to be done. Crowley had fucked off to find Leonardo and bought a sketch off him. The best one he had.

Percival had laid her coat across a chair and kicked their feet up at a table. The furniture was less covered, here. She really liked the couch: a huge space-age styled thing at the back wall—with chairs in the same style that made the whole thing look like one giant piece, deconstructed.

Her eyes came to rest on a copy of _Hustler_ set atop of a stack of boxes. She picked it up, and leaned on the stack.

“Your library includes Larry Flynt?”

Percival was smoking again. “Champion of free speech,” they said, exhaling fog around them.

“Hmm.” She tossed it down and walked over. “What have you found on Bakhtin?”

“Look, if Bakhtin wanted the Russians, and Heaven by association, to have that list, he would have given it to them by now. We just have to wait for him to make his move.”

“We can’t afford to wait. This is your city, Percival,” she said and crossed her arms. “Or do you only know doormen and bellhops?”

Their expression was something closed-off. “So what did you find in Istasha’s apartment?” they asked.

“Some Deutsche Marks,” Crowley said, walking up to the edge of the table where the demon reclined across from her. “Empty passport, travel visas, and a picture of the two of you together a few years back.”

Percival sighed. “Did I not mention… we were friends?” they said, halting, contemplative.

“No.”

“No? No, I must have forgot to.”

They grinned, taking a final drag and putting out the cigarette. They grabbed their keys and the pack from the desk and hopped up to their feet. 

“Get your coat, love. We’re going for a walk.”

Fine. They stepped back outside. Percival walked them along the Wall. Lovely.

They were talking, “Look, we’re all exposed by that list. And saving the world is cool and all that, but my main objective is staying alive. I’ve been head of Berlin Station for ten years. You’ve got to know that I’m the only demon around who can help you get that list.”

“Yeah. I’ve read your file. All of your file. So let’s, uh, cut the crap, shall we? This whole hungover, show-up-late, don’t-know-which-way-is-up act, I’m not buying it. I trust you about as far as I can throw you.”

Percival didn’t have Crowley’s thoroughly-padded resume, but they’d pulled their weight: Melos, Caracalla, Ivan the Terrible. Madness. Destruction. Crowley wished she could chalk it up to her own knack for being in the right place, at the right time, letting the humans create their own misfortune. But, there was a common thread. The way you could recognize a series of paintings belonging to the same artist. Some malevolent flourish, spottable in all of it.

“It’s a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver,” Percival said.

“Niccolò Machiavelli.” The man had turned out to be more interesting in print. She could feel Percival’s focus intensify. “It was on your shelf,” she said.

“Oh Satan, I think I fucking love you.”

“That’s too bad.”

They grinned.

* * *

**Hell: Debriefing**

* * *

“If Percival was telling the truth about Bakhtin,” Crowley said to Beelzebub. “I needed to figure out what Jeremiel knew.”

* * *

**Central Cafe Und Restaurant**

* * *

The place the driver had recommended, when they’d tried to ambush her at Tegel. She’d kept the card.

It had gotten dark out, and Crowley had changed into something appropriately elegant: a shimmery, sable, backless thing that reached the floor. The host took her coat, and she walked up to the bar.

The bartender politely looked to her.

“Stoli on ice,” Crowley said.

She took a cigarette out of the small clutch she carried and brought it to her lips.

The flame of a lighter flicked into existence before her.

She turned her attention to the angel holding it, and slowly, deliberately, leaned forward. Jeremiel grinned down at her as she inhaled in to ignite the paper. He clicked the lighter shut.

“Guten Abend, Fräulein.”

“I’m not speaking German tonight,” she murmured.

The bartender set the drink in front of her and hurried away.

“So you’re… British?”

“Hoppades du att jag var Svensk?” she said with a smirk, then reached for her drink.

“Very impressive. This can’t be your only talent.”

“Talents can be overrated.”

“Dedication, loyalty is very rare these days.”

A veiled comment from Jeremiel might as well have been standing nude behind a clear vinyl shower curtain. She turned to face him more squarely, not ready to reply yet.

“Everyone here is searching for something,” Jeremiel said. “What are you looking for?”

She considered that. “Well, when all’s said and done, wouldn’t you say deep down we’re all searching for the same thing?”

They stood there at the bar, with its gold and reds, polite as they sized each other up and took measure.

“I leave you alone for one moment and you’re already attracting admirers?” cut through the stillness. Aziraphale poked his head around from behind Jeremiel to look at Crowley, then up to the angel.

“Jeremiel, three isn’t always a crowd, but I’m afraid tonight it is. You see, I’m rather intent on learning what precisely my old adversary is doing here in Berlin.”

“Hmm. Principalities,” Jeremiel said, managing to be patronizing with four syllables. He turned back toward Crowley, who wanted to punch him in the teeth, “And what about Hell? Maybe we could make some sort of, uh, arrangement.”

“I know you couldn’t possibly be suggesting what you appear to be,” Aziraphale said from over his shoulder. His tone was clipped.

“Please. Don’t act like it would be the first time, Aziraphale. We’ve got back channels older than this planet.”

“We aren’t having this conversation here. Now if you’ll excuse me, we haven’t seen each other in a long time. And we really need to catch up.” 

Aziraphale said “catch up” the way some people would say “go outside and shoot each other” or “set this ship we’re on ablaze.” Crowley assumed he was putting on an act but the tone made her shiver. It was probably fine.

“Alone,” Aziraphale said.

“Well,” Jeremiel said to Crowley, briskly, “Berlin is a small place. I’m sure our paths will cross again.”

Crowley watched him leave. 

Aziraphale smiled and leaned in. “Sorry. You looked like you needed saving.” His expression sobered. “He won’t go far, I’m afraid. I don’t know what… decision was behind him being assigned to Berlin but he’s rather… unpleasant. Difficult.”

He looked like he always did, down to the bow tie. Crowley noticed he wore a soft sweater beneath his coat, instead of the usual vest and its accompanying watch and fob. She liked it.

And she was already fighting a smile. “I appreciate the gesture.”

They regarded each other. Crowley didn’t think the previous millennia of shared silence had used to carry the same weight, but things sure had since the sixties—the handful of times they’d met up in person. It would have been far too soon for a picnic.

“It’s good to see you,” Aziraphale said.

“So what have you been up to, living in Berlin?” Crowley asked.

“Oh please, don’t ask. Nothing important.”

Crowley noticed that the lines around his eyes matched the way he’d sounded on the phone, not that either of them had actually aged. But, he wasn’t as happy as he should be, here.

“Come on, try me,” she said, gently.

He sighed. “Okay, are you ready? I’ve performed minor miracles. I’ve, um, taken up photography. Terribly newfangled. I uh, believe I was chiefly reassigned to...” he trailed off.

“Babysit the rogue archangel?”

“Quite.” He frowned. “Rogue?”

“This isn’t the place.” _Come on, Crowley._

“Well,” she tried again. “I’m sorry you’ve had to do all that. Your bookshop is still fine, by the way. No dustier than usual.”

He visibly relaxed, and inched closer into the several feet that still remained between them. “Well, in a way, I suppose it was good to leave England for a bit—take a vacation. It had been a difficult century or so. With the wars, and the trials during the end of the last one and... a broken heart.”

Crowley’s eyebrows shot up, and she thoroughly failed at masking her surprise. A broken heart? What? Surely he didn’t mean–it couldn’t be about their fight. But Aziraphale, consorting with mortals? Crowley had known about the Hundred Guineas Club, and Oscar, but she hadn’t thought… a broken heart was no small thing, particularly coming from Aziraphale, who’d never met a moment of emotional vulnerability he couldn’t delicately back away from. Crowley was surprised by the flash of anger she felt. She wanted to hurt whoever might have done that to her friend, unless he meant… Oh, she wasn’t saying anything. She should say something.

“Well, whoever he is, I’m sure he regrets it.” Not bad. Good platitude. All the words came out in order.

“I’m sure _she_ does.” 

Oh. _Oh._ Crowley felt like she’d been hit by a truck, and that the truck had told her all of her plants had died, and that she’d been in the Bentley at the time, which was a bad metaphor. 

Aziraphale seemed taken aback by her now-stricken expression, and he drew a quick breath in, “Look, a—a friend owns a club, nearby. Would you like to, um, go there?”

What? 

“Now?” she said, through the whiplash. She hadn’t even managed to work her way past hurt to offended, because she should be offended ( _he_ had the _broken heart_? After “fraternizing” and “too fast”?) and the angel was already trying to move to a second location.

“Sure,” Aziraphale said.

She almost said sure back, but luckily, instinct kicked in and she remembered that it was too risky for them to leave together. And she had to go back to The Watchmaker. “I can’t.”

“Well, I’ll give you the address anyway,” he said, pulling a card from the air with a small hand trick. “Come meet me there tomorrow night?” He handed it to Crowley. She was going to need a rolodex at the end of this. 

“Will you come? Perhaps?” he asked.

“You’re relentless,” Crowley said darkly, softening.

Aziraphale smiled again, but then a series of camera flashes went off outside of the bar and his expression soured. “Someone called David Hasslehoff is in town,” he said.

“Lucky us.” 

“It’s awful… bebop. Berlin is truly doomed.”

Crowley put the card in her clutch. “I’ll try, angel. I’ll see you, yeah? Be careful.” She needed to go.

“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, Crowley,” he said, like he always did, in the face of loads of evidence to the contrary.

With a very impressive and very cool amount of resolve (she thought), Crowley gave him a final smirk and went to fetch her coat.

* * *

From a table in the corner, Percival watched Crowley leave. Aziraphale lingered for some time, had a drink of his own, and then left.


	6. Oh your city lies in dust, my friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley's trip to the movie theater is ruined. Aziraphale has post-errand contemplation.

Crowley returned to the storefront. Her mind hadn’t slowed for a second of the trip over. She concentrated on projecting an air of calm, and quietly stepped inside.

“Your watch is ready,” the man behind the partition said. “It’s on the counter in that plain envelope.”

She picked it up.

“I think you’ll find my contact very useful,” he added, as she exited.

* * *

**Later, Percival’s safe-house**

* * *

_“Your watch is ready. It’s on the counter in that plain envelope. I think you’ll find my contact very useful.”_ the words replayed into the headphones Percival wore. They examined the devices in front of them.

* * *

_”East Berliners stormed the West German embassies in Czechoslovakia earlier this week as the Czech government has begun to wave the refugees through checkpoints with few questions. One has to ask how long the East Berlin government can hold on.”_

In her hotel, Crowley stubbed out her cigarette. She was collecting the vices of demonic colleagues. Vodka because it reminded her of Tash in a way that was nice—that didn’t remind her of a puddle next to a riverbank. Smoking because Percival was a bad influence, and it was the eighties, and it gave her something to do that wasn’t calling Aziraphale, or replaying what he’d said for the thousandth time. She felt more adrift than usual, and she always felt adrift.

She carefully laid tools out, magnifying glasses and delicate screwdrivers, and bent over the watch. On each miniature component, letters and numbers were carved. She began to write them out.

* * *

**Hell: Debriefing**

* * *

“Bakhtin and the list had not yet surfaced in the West. I needed to meet my new contact and see what I was up against in the East,” Crowley said.

Beelzebub put zir head in zir hands and groaned.

“Right now I’m not feeling very confident about this story of yours,” Uriel said. “Why not use Percival’s connections in the East?”

“You lot might go around trusting each other, or pretending at it, but I don’t think you understand how Hell works,” Crowley said. “Why would I trust Percival? Especially when they’d set me up already?”

* * *

**Alexanderplatz, East Berlin**

* * *

Jeremiel watched her walk into the square from a parked car alongside several of his humans. One still wearing a neck brace after Percival had dumped him, in terrible condition, at one of Jeremiel’s offices in the West.

“Bring her to me,” he said.

* * *

Crowley had noticed the humans tailing her. Again. She took a sharp right, and headed for the cinema that faced the square. Satan, this was old.

Inside, she ducked into a theater, took a seat, and waited. Some of them passed through, and back out.

After ten minutes or so—the movie was something where people stood around being wet and sad—she got back up and slipped out, hitting a fire alarm on her way. The humans caused the appropriate level of commotion in response. Amidst the chaos, she took the opportunity to dig through a coat rack until she found a pair of car keys in a pocket. Just in case. Then she went to find a staff entrance.

In a back room, some sort of maintenance area set up behind a screen, all blue and grey as pictures drifted over the left “wall” of fabric, two men were waiting. One tried to jump her, but she took him out quickly, throwing a series of punches and grabbing a ladder folded up nearby to bring it down on top of him. He didn’t get back up.

She walked toward the other man, who stood in front of the screen. “This is wildly unnecessary,” she said.

“You’re coming with me.”

“Really not, mate.”

But, there was something off about him. He took up… too… much _space_ , metaphysically, for a human. She looked closer.

There was a holiness to him. Not like Jesus or anything, no. But, she remembered the apostles, when they’d performed miracles. Hadn’t had a clue what was going on with those rumors til she’d gone to see for herself. They’d been miracled, to do miracles. Boosted up with power to perform holy works. Probably Michael’s idea or something. But, those were exceptional circumstances. Not like this.

The asshole standing before her with the bleached undercut and polo shirt was fucking _miracled._

“No,” Crowley breathed.

* * *

“No,” Uriel said.

“No—yep. _Yes_ ,” Crowley said, raising his voice slightly. “Yes, Jeremiel did. And things only got worse after this.”

Beelzebub laughed past zir hands.

* * *

The man took a step forward and Crowley took a step back. She passed the tip of one of the keys between her fingers.

“Hey, wait, we don’t have to,” she said, trying again. “Do you know what he did to you?”

“He blessed me. And you’re coming with me.”

“Satan, you’re singled-minded.”

The man lunged at her.

She threw a punch and he weaved around it, grabbing her by the throat. It closed things off, and a wave of alarm rolled through her corporation. She clamped a hand onto his wrist and pulled down with her full strength. He went staggering backwards.

Crowley moved forward, jabbing with her hand that held the keys, but striking with both. He blocked her punches, ducking, and taking the blows he couldn’t dodge on his forearms.

He reached to seize hold of her shoulders, but again, she pulled him off, this time managing to land an elbow to his face.

He doubled over and she changed her grip on the keys. He went for her again and she stabbed him in the face. He groaned and grabbed her hand. He jerked it away, but the keys remained—embedded in the meat of his cheek.

He took hold of her throat and walked her back into a cabinet. He lifted her above him. She gulped, and could only make stuttering, incomplete noises. He could discorporate her, but he couldn’t make her unconscious.

“Are you crazy?” he said, roughly. “He just wants to talk.” He glared up at her, then, with a yell, flung her away from him.

Crowley got her hands out just enough to roll into the fall, but the floor still slammed into her, hard. She struggled upright and made it to her feet just as he reached her. He kicked out, and connected. She was thrown back through the screen.

She landed in the front row of the emptied theater. She scrambled up. Hurried for an exit. She snapped power up around her, for cover, just long enough to get out the back of the building. She didn’t need to make her presence any more detectable than it already was. 

Now she had to take the long way.

* * *

Crowley stepped out onto the roof of the Berliner Zeitung office, above which loomed the Fernsehturm and the paper’s own notorious rotating sign. A young man reclined in one of a pair of lawn chairs. A fan was sitting between the chairs, along with a cooler. On a table, there was a radio. There were also several additional bottles of alcohol, and a thermos. It was a nice set up.

“You are late, and you were followed,” he said, as she approached. His hair had been styled into two elongated poufs, almost like the ears of a rabbit.

He was a demon. 

“I’m late because I was followed. I lost them 20 minutes ago near the Palast der Republik. Not that I’m complaining, but uh—I was expecting a human.”

The demon smiled at her. “You’re as good as your reputation.”

“Are you sure this is the best place to meet?”

“Keep your enemies close.” He lifted a middle finger in the air, towards the sign. “I’m a permanent fixture for them now. The Watchmaker says there’s been great interest in this list on the black market the last few days.”

“Any sign of Bakhtin?”

“No.”

Crowley examined him. She didn’t recognize him. But there was something familiar, there.

“Have we met before?”

“Once or twice. Only in passing. You can call me Merkel.”

“German name. Human name.”

“I don’t have a real one. Never got one after The Fall. It’s better that way.”

… _huh._

“This Satchel character has people worried on both sides of the wall.” 

“Yeah. So, you and Percival know each other, right?”

“Yes. I report into them. Officially. Unofficially, they remember I exist a couple times a year and mostly want to be left alone. Called me when they needed a bartender the other day. If you’d asked them for their contact, they’d have probably also pointed you towards me—unless they’re trying to sabotage you or something,” he said, amiably.

“Couldn’t imagine. What kind of network have you assembled out here?”

“There’s a lot of, uh, dissatisfied youth on this side of the wall.”

Crowley took a seat in the empty lawn chair and reached into the cooler. She pulled out a beer.

Merkel continued, “They’re like a… tinderbox. If you find the right spark...”

The bottle cap plinked off and Crowley took a swig.

“Keep talking,” she said.

* * *

“Oh yeah, he was in Berlin, wasn’t he,” Beelzebub said.

Crowley and Uriel both stared at zir.

“Are you kidding?” Uriel asked.

* * *

Aziraphale walked along Grunewaldstraße, his hands clasped behind him. He’d distracted himself with meals and errands, but he kept returning to last night, and seeing Crowley.

He’d chosen to linger near Percival’s, the previous morning. He knew Hell would have put the two of them in touch, Crowley would likely stop by, and she had.

He’d spent the day like that, keeping his distance as closely as he dared. It was for both of their own good. Crowley had said things were dangerous, and Aziraphale was afraid that he'd figured out why.

As it happened, she’d left Percival’s, returned to her hotel room for several hours, and eventually emerged to visit Central Cafe. Jeremiel had approached her there, and Aziraphale had appeared and cut in. Partially to send a message to the angel—Jeremiel wouldn’t recognize a threat but he’d certainly notice a potential inconvenience—but also because, if he was being honest, he just wanted to talk to her.

She’d been happy to see him. She looked like the most... alive, incandescent thing he’d ever seen, like always. It was the closest Aziraphale had felt to home in almost two decades. He wanted to wrap her around him, to curl up with her in the back of his bookshop with tea and take out and everything he missed. He wanted to twine her hair through his fingers, and to see her eyes properly again, though he was fond of the glasses. He missed his books very much, but her absence had been far more tangled through his time in Berlin.

Aziraphale had already planned to talk to Crowley, in a conceptual sort of way. About the heartbreak, and the holy water. It was a more distant concept, but associated with how he planned for them to go to The Ritz someday. Or how he’d let Crowley drive him somewhere, in some future. He’d only ever once, after the church, and the books. He'd planned to work his way there, one day. 

Aziraphale knew what he chose to deny himself. Crowley might have joked if he admitted that. She might muse aloud if a thing could possibly exist on earth that Aziraphale would ever abstain from, if he really wanted it. But he did: the truth of their friendship, the love he felt for Crowley—love he had accepted was Good, and Right, but love he knew Heaven wouldn’t understand. He knew it was to keep them both safe.

But Berlin was teetering on the edge of something. 6000 years were nearly up. Angels and demons were stepping further outside of the lines.

Aziraphale wasn’t ready to fall (in any sense), or to start writing love poems, but he found that his tolerance for risk had expanded in a way that left him bolder. How much time did they have left?

He was an angel. An angel’s judgment was a pure, absolute thing. And Aziraphale had realized his decision, as he walked into the cafe. He didn’t want to keep up with some half-hearted decorum, when he knew they’d both gone so far beyond that, already. He wanted to tell Crowley, his dearest friend, the truth of things. And amidst this chaos, when had they not been more free to?

So he had, and then watched her react with surprise, and a wealth of feelings that all seemed unhappy. Could probably have practiced, then.

Blessedly, things seemed a bit easier in the moments before she’d left, but he wondered if he’d see her tonight, and hoped trouble wasn't finding her.


	7. The politics of dancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *slaps chapter* this bad boy can fit so much plot development in it
> 
> Aziraphale and Crowley finally bang, and Percival knows how to break the ice with Jeremiel.

* * *

**Tauentzienstraße**

* * *

Percival listened to the sound of the church bells as they finished their cigarette, waiting. They chewed their bottom lip.

When Jeremiel was far enough ahead, they stepped away from the side of the building, and followed.

From a distance, they watched him go into The Watchmaker’s shop.

* * *

Inside, Jeremiel leaned over the counter.

“I am interested in selling a watch,” he said.

“What are you selling?”

“It is extremely valuable. Finest quality, and filled with secrets.”

The Watchmaker stepped out from behind his partition. He approached the angel.

“Would you mind if I inspect the merchandise?”

“Fuck yes, I mind. Just tell potential buyers, Jeremiel is open for business.”

The angel turned and left.

* * *

Crowley sat at the desk in her hotel room, running a tape forward. Jeremiel’s voice played back into her ears.

_“Berlin is a small place. I’m sure our paths will cross again.”_

Merkel had told her that he understood The List to function as two sources of information. To humans, it would read as a who’s-who of human agents. It would only be one of them, a supernatural being, who would be able to view it for what it also held. 

That was what she’d begun to expect, between Tash and Jeremiel both having embedded themselves in government agencies, but the second opinion was reassuring. She was too suspicious of Percival to ask them. Which was unfortunate, because she was curious what they thought.

She didn’t know what Jeremiel wanted. He seemed to be courting the attention of anyone who would have an interest: human, demon, or one of his own. Did he have a desired outcome? Did he have a price?

It had gotten dark out. She hit fast-forward.

 _”Sorry,”_ Aziraphale’s voice. _”You looked like you needed saving.”_

Forward again.

_”—a friend owns a club, nearby. Would you like to, um, go there?”_

* * *

Crowley didn’t know what she had been expecting, but it wasn’t this. It was a dance club, huge, and packed. Above the crowd, a neon sign shown down in blue, it said

**EVERYTHING YOU WANT IS**  
**ON THE OTHER SIDE OF FEAR**

She spotted Aziraphale at the bar, and he must have been looking for a supernatural presence, because he turned around as she approached. He smiled.

Crowley took a seat to the left of the angel.

“I didn’t think that you would show,” Aziraphale said, like a liar. He held out a drink. “‘Stoli’ on the rocks?”

Crowley took it. “You were paying attention.” 

“I look for pleasure in the details,” he said. 

They clinked glasses. She noticed they were drinking the same thing. “Since when do you drink vodka?”

“New city. New experiences.”

“Vodka and photography,” Crowley murmured. “Not the sort of place I’d expect you to suggest.”

Aziraphale shrugged.

And because she couldn’t get out of her own way, she brought it up. “You’re, uh, full of surprises. A broken heart, angel?”

Aziraphale winced. “I didn’t mean for it to be hurtful.”

“I know,” Crowley said, more gently. But her calm didn’t take, she was too annoyed about it, still. “But… you... had the broken heart? Not that anyone else did. But speaking hypothetically, if anyone was entitled to find _certain situations_ hurtful, a person wouldn’t expect it to be the person talking about fraternizing and um…” Whatever had happened in the Bentley. She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

Aziraphale didn’t respond for a few moments. He seemed to steel himself. Crowley hadn’t meant to bring this up, but here they were: talking about it. They’d both rushed into it and couldn’t seem to bring themselves to change course.

“Crowley, you asked me to give you a suicide pill. Don’t—I—I know you said that’s not what you wanted it for.” (Crowley had taken a sharp breath in with the intent of protesting.)

Aziraphale quickly continued, “But, what could you have expected me to think? And you’d asked… me. And then we don’t talk for a century. And then you… well you rescued me. Which I was grateful for. And, you rescued my satchel of books. You _remembered_ the books.” 

His eyes were filled with tears. _Oh, no._ In six thousand years, she could still count on one hand the number of times she had seen Aziraphale cry.

“But, you kept trying to get the holy water,” he said. “And I was terrified of what might happen, so I thought the only way to try to keep you safe, was to give it to you. And I just had to hope that you wouldn’t ever use it. Have you ever thought what that felt like? To give your…”

“Are you going to say associate?” she said.

He laughed, and the movement broke the surface tension at the edges of his lashes and sent a tear onto his cheek. “To give your friend,” he finished. “Something that could destroy you?”

“I think I do,” Crowley said, softly. Because she wanted to understand.

Aziraphale reached out and touched the side of her face. She startled at the touch, and he began to pull his hand back, but she quickly grabbed hold of it to keep it there.

This was new. His hand was soft. She rubbed her thumb across his palm, slid the tips of her fingers over his knuckles, across his fingers. She moved lower, to touch his wrist—her thumb traveling downward over his pulse point. She considered the blood in his veins.

He smiled tightly at her. “I don’t think you do,” he whispered. “But, I think you have an idea. I hope you never find out.”

Crowley didn’t let go of his hand, but glanced around them. “I don’t know if this is the right venue for this.”

He went to pull back again, and this time she let go. “I wasn’t trying to make things so…” He sighed and picked up his drink. “Heavy? I suppose there’s just a lot of things we haven’t talked about. I’m trying to be more forthright.” He looked concerned. “It’s apparently difficult to manage a good balance. I haven’t had much practice.”

“You’re doing fine, angel.”

“Well, between the two of us, you'd be the better judge of it. Thank you.”

Crowley wanted to touch him. They didn’t really touch. The last time they had was when she’d given him back those books, and before that… maybe centuries? She didn’t know how to talk about it, but maybe because they’d already stumbled into this weird, open space, she decided she’d try.

“Is… was your hand...I didn’t?” Oh, that wasn’t a sentence at all.

Aziraphale frowned at her. “My dear, I’m afraid I didn’t catch that. Did you mind? I’m sorry, if so. I didn’t intend to cross any boundaries.”

“You didn’t. We just… that’s not a thing we…”

His eyes flicked over her face, clearly trying to follow. Fuck it. 

“I liked it,” she said, and downed her vodka. She raised an arm to flag down the bartender, who wasn’t in the direction of Aziraphale—something for her to look at that wasn’t him.

The bartender brought her a new drink, and Aziraphale was a quiet presence to her right. His hand, warm, closed over hers where she had placed it on the bar.

She froze, and took a slow breath in, and then out. 

“Speaking of which,” Aziraphale said softly.

Crowley turned back to him.

“I’ve been dying to ask you a question,” he said.

Aziraphale leaned close and pressed his mouth against Crowley’s—who relaxed, ever so slightly, into the kiss. His lips were soft—against hers for only seconds before he drew back. She looked up into his face, so near to her own, and tried to understand what had just happened.

“Let’s go someplace quiet,” he said, and pushed off the bar. He pulled her away, by the hand he held.

She let him lead her through the crowd. What had he been doing in Berlin? Why was he talking about broken hearts and kissing people and holding Crowley’s hand?

The angel looked back at her. He was silhouetted by a light from a hallway ahead, a circle of red that looked like an actual halo.

Why had he kissed her? Did he want to do… more kissing… or kissing-adjacent things with her? Normally if Aziraphale had said ‘Let’s go someplace quiet,’ Crowley would have just assumed he wanted to go someplace quiet. But he said ‘Let’s go someplace quiet,’ like _Let’s go someplace quiet,_ which was the kind of thing Crowley would say to someone mid-temptation. 

Kissing Aziraphale had never been an option to consider. It had never even occurred to her. Well, it had occurred to her. Especially when she’d run into him during the couple of millennia preceding _anno Domini_. With what she was up to with humans, it was hard to not look at the angel and at least wonder. How his hair contrasted with the skin of his neck, what it would feel like to kiss his skin there, how it would feel against her mouth. Which was demonic of her: to contemplate an angel that way—or maybe it wasn’t. She hadn’t been sure if contemplating the way an angel would feel was some sort of transgression for a demon, and she hadn’t decided at that time, not yet, that she didn’t really want much to do with Hell, either. So, it had been a concern.

Even once she’d stopped caring, inwardly, Crawly-into-Crowley and The Arrangement, and all that, and drinks and them even becoming friends, she still had never given it much thought beyond fleeting moments of idle curiosity. Well, her qualifying for sainthood seemed more likely, but memorizing the shape of an angel using only her mouth? Sure, she was open to it.

Except Aziraphale had kissed her and said “Let’s go someplace quiet.” and this seemed to be happening. 

Honestly, it was a great idea.

They walked down the graffiti’d hallway for a bit and then Aziraphale stopped walking, and turned to face her. He looked at her the way he’d looked at her a hundred times. Hamlet? Sure. 

Crowley put her hands on either side of Aziraphale’s face and kissed him. Their mouths opened and she felt the slightest brush of Aziraphale’s tongue and something inside of her sparked, and then he moaned against her mouth and she was burning. 

She pushed him into the wall. He caught her lower lip between his teeth, _what_ , and slotted his mouth against hers. She wrapped an arm around his waist, drew them together, her hand touched the gun at his—

A bucket of ice dumped itself over her desire. She grabbed the gun and backed into the opposite wall. She pointed it at him. Aziraphale stared at her, stunned.

“Why the gun, angel?” she said, quietly. 

A beat passed, and then Aziraphale went from shocked to irritated. “You’re not as well disguised as you might think, Crowley. You’re here because of the death of the demon Istasha. Will you—stop pointing that thing at me.”

Crowley tossed the gun aside (Aziraphale glanced down and it blinked away before it hit the ground) and surged forward. Aziraphale had said Tash’s name and in a flash, Crowley was so angry. It all came back. She grabbed him by the lapels. “What do you know about Istasha?”

Aziraphale searched her face, concerned, but not afraid. “Nothing,” he said. “But, I know Jeremiel did it. I know about The List, and whatever’s in it has us killing for it.”

Crowley let go, and backed away. She paced. What had they been doing?

Aziraphale pulled at his sleeves. He adjusted his bow tie with a pained expression. “This… I’m sorry. This didn’t have anything to do with that.”

Crowley swung around. “What did it have to do with, then?”

“I—just... want you.” He met Crowley’s eyes, through the glasses.

Crowley didn’t shove him back against the wall and stick her tongue in his mouth, but it was a conscious decision: to not. She tried to find the right words, “Isn’t this all… this is past fast, angel… this is…”

“I know.”

“I don’t want us to snog and then crash up against each other and then wait one hundred years before things go back to normal.”

“I don’t want that, either,” he said, earnest. “It isn’t important, not compared to the rest of what we have.”

Crowley scowled at the acknowledgment.

Aziraphale stepped forward. “Crowley, I care about you very much. It doesn’t matter to me, what the shape of our attachment is. It warms my heart to share the air of this planet with you, moreso than the elements that comprise it. Our companionship is this brightness in my days that… eclipses any created sun.” 

Crowley realized to her horror that there were tears in her eyes. He was being ridiculous. She thanked her sunglasses. “You should have become a poet,” she said, as sarcastically and with as much venom as she could.

He laughed, and then smiled. He relaxed back against the wall and looked at her with unguarded affection.

Crowley closed the space between them. She kissed him, and then spun him around to face away from her. She took hold of his jaw and ran her other hand down the buttons of his sweater. She felt a bed hit their backs. 

Different ceiling. Not her miracle. They must be back at his place.

Aziraphale rolled over on top of her, and her legs parted. He kissed her and ran a hand over her neck, down to her breast. His touch felt almost electric, heating her skin. She could feel that he was hard, and it was the greatest realization she’d ever had. She pressed against him, and then realized her current equipment was very different from what she understood to be his usual.

“This is uh… I can swap to a different set-up if that’s more your thing.”

Aziraphale’s mouth was against her neck and she felt a drag of teeth that rolled her eyes back and made her whine. “I want you. I don’t care what form you’re in,” he whispered. He lifted his head up. His hair was mussed. He looked incredible.

“Though I’m not sure this would be advisable if we weren’t in our human bodies,” he said. “Probably a bit of a buffer.”

Crowley did not want to talk about the fine points of occult amalgamation and she tugged at his jacket, frustrated. “Why are you wearing so much?” 

He sat up, still on his knees between her legs, and pulled off his jacket—leaving him only in the sweater, button-up, and presumably another layer beneath that. Then he touched her dress. Crowley wiggled it off without getting up, down to fishnets and underwear.

“Could you…” his hand hovered at her sunglasses, not touching them. She paused, but took them off. She set them on top of her discarded dress, and looked at him.

Aziraphale’s pupils were blown wide. She could see the starlight in them. 

She pulled at his belt, opened his trousers, pushed her hand past the waistband of his pants, and felt him, hard and—this was the best thing that had ever happened.

Aziraphale groaned. His skin was still so soft there. He was soft everywhere. He was fucking perfect. Crowley drew him down onto the bed. She stroked his cock, while she kissed him, and he was panting, breathless. Because of her.

“I’m—if we don’t—” he said.

“Yes, fuck,” she hissed. “Come for me.”

Wet heat washed across her hand and he moaned. He pulled her to him and kissed her through his orgasm. She felt such a surge of happiness at that; she worried she was going to discorporate.

They lay there for a few moments, in some new _after_. Crowley stared up at the ceiling, feeling self-conscious. Her hand was still in his pants. She vanished the mess and withdrew it. The vulnerability chafed, but she was also flaring with desire. 

She turned to him, looking at his mouth. 

He kissed her again. Crowley decided to vanish the remains of her clothing as well. He ran his hands over her, kissed her neck, brushed his lips over her collarbone, licked over a nipple. 

He moved back over her, and she looked at his clothes, ruffled, but still so buttoned up. She could see the strength of his shoulders. She was avoiding eye contact.

He held her by the waist and maneuvered himself lower in the bed, he moved his arms under her legs as he traced the lines of her hip bones with his mouth.

“Yes,” she breathed.

His mouth was hot between her thighs, the center of her, and she tilted her hips into it. She slid her fingers through his hair; it felt amazing. He was drawing his tongue upwards over her clit, circling, and she was coming. The orgasm ran through her system and into her bones. It tore a gasp from her. Her eyes teared; her face twisted in a silent scream. 

She floated down from it, as her thoughts slowly reassembled. 

Aziraphale sat back. Crowley sprawled, boneless, under him. “I want to—” he said.

Crowley blinked up at him, overcome “You want to fuck me?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

She sat up. “You want to fuck me.”

Aziraphale snapped a finger and vanished his clothes. 

Crowley fell upon him.

Fuck, he was beautiful. His cock was beautiful. She loved his shoulders, the shape to his arms. The Greeks should have written epics about his fucking thighs.

The room seemed darker around him, he was brilliant, and still hard. She turned to face him. They were both were up on their knees. She wrapped her hand around his cock, and brought her leg over so that she was straddling him, bracketing his knees with her own, and he was pressed at the edge of her. She shifted lower and he slid inside of her with a wave of sensation that forced her head back. They both moaned.

This was… she looked down at him. He wrapped an arm around her waist, lifted her as he changed position slightly, like it was nothing. She forgot how strong he was. Well, she didn’t forget, but—feeling it was different. They were staring at each other, and the emotions passing across his face were too quick for her to follow.

They moved together, she shifted up slightly, but he also lifted her again, and then she moved down and he pushed back deeper inside of her and fuck, it was so good. 

She snaked her arms around his neck. They held themselves as close to each other as they could while they moved, and Crowley came again, her nervous system overloading. She returned to earth with Aziraphale running his fingers through her hair, his hands so delicate on her face, and she pulled him down to the bed, on top of her, still in her.

She could feel his mouth at her throat. With one hand he held her breast, and palmed her ass with the other, lifting her thigh as he fucked her.

Crowley couldn’t sense love, the way angels could, in their day-to-day. But, she was currently wrapped around and filled up by a being that was made of the stuff.

 _This is what angels are._ It curled through her like a solar flare, and she knew it was what Aziraphale felt for everyone, all the time. She was just close enough to experience it.

He moved his hands away in a slide of sensation, and he raised himself up onto his elbows. There was a tightness to his face that almost looked like pain, and his lashes fluttered down for moments. He shook his head, watching her as he said—sighed, “God, you have no idea how you feel.”

She reached a hand between them, and touched herself. They stared into each others eyes, unblinking. She was lost in it. She watched his brows draw together as he breathed, “Oh, oh, Crowley,” and she came, silently, shaking, one more time as she felt him spill inside her. 

She tightened her legs and arms around him, holding him there. He gave into it, embraced her. 

After a few minutes, they separated. Aziraphale’s expression was raw, whatever he was feeling. He looked at her like he loved her. And he did. She could still feel it. 

Crowley didn’t look too closely at her own feelings, where Aziraphale was concerned. It made her uncomfortable, to put it mildly. She couldn’t imagine life without him.

But she knew that unlike Aziraphale, the only person she felt that for was one angel, specifically.

“Was that okay?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes. “Was that okay,” she repeated.

He took her hand and twined their fingers together. “It was wonderful, for me.”

Satan, he was so earnest.

She turned to face him, touched his face and kissed him, because she could. “I thought it was wonderful.”

They lay there quietly for a while.

“You’re still going to talk to me after this, right?” she whispered.

“Of course.”

* * *

**Hell: Debriefing**

* * *

“SzZso you made contact with the angel Aziraphale?” 

“Obviously.” 

“Why?” 

“I believed he had information I could exploit. Nothing more.”

Uriel leaned forward. “And did he?”

Crowley didn’t say anything; he was thinking. Get it under control.

“Did he have any information, Crowley?” Beelzebub asked.

* * *

“There’s something I need to tell you.” Aziraphale said. “It has to do with your friend Percival, they—”

Crowley covered his mouth and reached over to Aziraphale’s nightstand. There was a radio there. She turned the volume up to full. Aziraphale whispered in her ear.

* * *

“No. He gave me nothing.”

* * *

In a dark space between apartments in East Berlin, Percival stood in front of their Porsche. 

Jeremiel approached them, from behind. “Hello, Percival.”

Percival tightened their grip around the ice pick they were holding.

“Are you following me?” the angel asked. He drew a gun and walked forward, nearer than he should have. For the second time in a week, he said, “Maybe you’re not as good at this spy shit as you think.” 

Percival whirled around with a roar. Jeremiel didn’t have time to raise the gun. Percival buried the point of the ice pick into his forehead.

There was a loosening of air pressure as the angel was pulled out of his corporation, which collapsed to the ground.

“That was for Iz, you fucking prick.” Percival spat, crouching over him. “Now give me that fucking list.” They grabbed his arm and pulled the watch off of his wrist. And while they were at it, they also took the gun.

* * *

Crowley sat by Aziraphale, brooding. Aziraphale was reading something, and Crowley had made comments about how she needed to get going, but she was still in his bed. In some part of her sulfured heart, she was so happy.

And she was afraid. And she was thinking.


	8. The only truth I know is the look in your eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percival reads a list. Aziraphale and Crowley are emotional in a forest.

* * *

**Hell: Debriefing**

* * *

“We needed to get you a messZage, Crowley. You were several days into your mission without a single lead, and plenty of distractionzz. You had to be reminded of the course at hand.”

Crowley’s jaw was aching from clenching it. “Oh, I received your message,” he said, cooly.

* * *

**The Wall**

* * *

It had been left for her at the front desk. From Uriel: Meet at the Berlin Wall. 2pm.

It was snowing. Crowley assumed she’d meant the spot closest to the hotel, and sure enough, Uriel stood up on one of the viewing platforms. She didn’t turn, but started speaking as Crowley walked up the stairs, had to have been waiting to feel something demonic so that she could monologue like a prat.

“That’s quite a view,” Uriel said. “70 miles of barbed wire, 310 guard towers, 65 anti-vehicle trenches, 40,000 Soviet-trained heavily armed frontier troops. All that, and 5,000 GDR citizens still had the brass balls to escape.”

“Why are you here?” Crowley said.

“Beelzebub called me.”

“Of course ze did.” Beelzebub wasn’t going to visit Earth if ze could avoid it. Why wouldn’t ze find an excuse to inconvenience an angel?

“I don’t have to remind you of how fast the clock is ticking. If this thing gets out, the consequences could be beyond anticipation. War before the apocalypse.”

“I understand the severity of the situation, Uriel. And the time imperative.”

Uriel gave Crowley a considering look. Crowley stopped her hands from tightening into fists. 

“Listen,” Uriel said, then. “I didn’t come all the way down here just to give you some rousing pep-talk. So I’ll cut to the chase. Last night you met with one of ours. Aziraphale is out of his depth. Given the climate, I’d hate to see an order come down the line that falls in his disinterest.”

 _Wait, what?_ Why had that gotten their attention? What was wrong?

“Disinterest? What do you mean his disinterest?” she asked, as nonchalantly as she could.

“Don’t insult my intelligence, Crowley, you know exactly what I fucking mean.” She poked Crowley in the chest, hard, and pushed past her. “Hope you get a snapshot. Next week this will be a whole different picture.”

Crowley watched her go, her pulse up in her throat. What did she know? Had they learned about the Arrangement? That wasn’t possible; her response had been too mild. Had they seen them together? They must’ve. Did they think he was tempted? Why else would Heaven punish Aziraphale? It was a stupid question to ask. It was Heaven. Punishment was a core value. But, what did it all mean?

She walked back to her hotel, worried and ruminating, thoughts skipping around. She hadn’t thought of Uriel in millennia, before all of this, apparently that didn’t mean she wasn’t still angry.

Uriel was clever, so clever. Always had been. It made it worse, that she stood so firmly with Heaven’s cruelty. 

Crowley had thought of her during The Flood. People didn’t just drown. So many things floated, and the survivors clung to the wreckage of homes and trees. The screaming had lasted for days, until the humans seemed to realize there was no way out. They died of thirst. Aziraphale had been silent, and at first Crowley hadn’t been certain if it was rain or tears that streaked his face. They were stuck together for so long, mostly avoiding each other as they bore witness from Ararat. Crowley had watched him grieve, and pray, and try to hide his weeping.

Some hundred days in, as he sat as far away from the angel as he could manage, Crowley had thought of Uriel, and how she would have watched it all impassively. And at the end, when there was the rainbow, Crowley had known she’d been a part of it. It was so clearly her area of expertise.

In Constantinople, Crowley had found himself opening up, feeling what was almost the beginnings of hope around Tash. But, that didn’t last, either.

* * *

**Silvertown, 1917**

* * *

Crowley followed Tash. They were both drunk. It wasn’t even dark out yet, but they’d spent the day in a pub, and now Tash couldn’t stop giggling, stumbling along in her unlaced boots. 

“And then, Hastur—Crowley you should have seen the look on his face.” She lowered her glasses to wipe her eyes. “He was livid. And I go, ‘Well what would you expect me to do about that?’”

“Amazing,” Crowley said. “That’s incredible, Tash.”

“Satan, yeah it was. I wish you could have been there. Oh, this way, come on.” 

She did something and the door of the tower they’d walked up to opened. Crowley glanced about, they were in an industrial area, and there were a lot of humans running around. And something was burning, a bit away. “What is this place?”

“It’s a mill! Well, for the next fifteen minutes. Come on.”

Something, some bad feeling, made Crowley hesitate, in the doorway. 

“Oh?” he said. “What are you planning?”

“Gonna be a huge explosion, and I’ve got us premium seats. We’re pretty heat resistant, so. But not if you don’t hurry up. Come on!”

Crowley followed her up the stairs, feeling his enthusiasm deflate. Maybe it would be his sort of explosion, where everyone made it out the other side worse for wear but purposefully alive. It wasn’t going to be, though. He already knew it wasn’t going to be.

He came up to the final floor to the sight of Tash breaking a window. “Wouldn’t want the broken glass in our faces,” she said, cheerily. “The plant is right next to the Fire Station and it’s all going to get taken out. I think we’re even going to get a church.”

“What’s going to cause it?”

“I started a fire in the melt-pot room.”

“When, earlier?”

“While we were walking over, you know I can multi-task. 50 tons of TNT are about to go off. Don’t worry, I’ll protect our corporations.”

She reached out to take him by the arm and pulled him up to the window beside her. She rested her head on his shoulder.

Crowley didn’t sober up. He wished he was more drunk.

They waited.

Crowley focused all of his energy into staying still, when it happened. There was the huge boom, and the flash of brightness. In the milliseconds after, their eyes adjusted to the destruction—just as the energy of the explosion hit them and funneled past.

Tash stumbled, laughing, but true to her word, they were unscathed.

“Fuck!” she shouted, as they stood there in the silence, but then the screams began, confusion and fear and pain. Crowley made sure to smile.

“I picked this time of day for the low death count, usual stakes there so we’ll get like half—60 or so, maybe a few more, but this is going to turn so many of them our way. Did we get the church?”

She let go of him and ran to look out another window. “We got the church!”

She’d gone for a low death count. Crowley was fixating on that. Maybe that was something.

“Nicely done,” he said, and he sounded like he meant it.

“Thanks, chuckaboo.”

“So what’s your long game on this?”

“Thousands of homeless, ages for reconstruction, depending on each other, letting each other down, disappointing each other. The usual. Turning to their vices to cope. This is totally your style of play, Crowley.”

She wasn’t wrong, though not like this, not with these stakes.

“It’s like ants in a maze. Keep moving the walls around and watch them turn on each other.”

Oh, there it was.

* * *

**Personal Database** .  
.  
**Istasha**  
. 

****

****

**D. Percival**  
  
.  
.  
.  
. 

Percival crouched over the microfilm reader, paging through the names. 

****MI6, D̴o̶w̷n̵s̸t̶a̴i̵r̵s̴**  
.  
.  
.  
**Anthony J. Crowley**  
**Known encounters**  
.  
.  
**A.Z. Fell (England, H̴̱̪̳͓̎̓͜è̶̡͕̼̗͎̲̖ȧ̷̤̲͆̈̐v̷̛͓̝͖͔̾͒̌͋͘͝e̸͍͍̭̍̕n̵͇̦͚̱̠̐̊͗̈́̃͂̕)****

Percival’s eyes narrowed.

********Gordan Merkel (CIA, D̵o̷w̸n̵s̵t̵a̸i̴r̶s̸)**  
.  
.  
.  
.** ** **

********Double Agent**  
**Identity is** ** ** **

Percival sat back. They reached for the nearest bottle and drank directly from it, emptied its contents. Then they stood and walked over to their phone, and dialed.

She picked up on the first ring, “Crowley.”

“Meet me at the Rough Trade Bar at Oranienstraße.”

* * *

Crowley carefully taped the recording devices down again before she dressed.

It was one of _those_ bars, of course it was. Trust Percival to actually find novelty in this type of place. There were circus performers doing various contortions above the crowd, and the amount of vinyl per-square-foot had taken a sharp uptick from street level.

Crowley had joined Percival at the bar and she was sipping her drink, waiting on them to talk.

“Look at all these hedonists,” they said, at last. “It’s like a beautiful woman gone wrong. I fucking love it.”

“Word is Jeremiel is out of commission for a bit,” Crowley said. “Someone found him with a homemade lobotomy.” Merkel had told her. It had been strange, that Uriel hadn’t mentioned it. Had he already found his way back to earth?

“Either way, we have to deal with Spyglass. Thinking it through, he doesn’t have much time over there,” Percival said.

“Our priority is The List. We can’t make mistakes.”

“Come on. He’s hardly the most trustworthy person I’ve ever met.” They laughed, to themselves. “Or the fucking brightest.”

Crowley straightened. “Wait,” she said. “You said you hadn’t met him.”

She could actually _see_ them do the mental calculus, then.

“I lied,” they said, eventually, smug. “And he claims to have memorized the entire list. He’s ready to make the jump.”

* * *

“You believe he committed the entire thing to memory?” Uriel asked.

“Everything. Had I known earlier, I would have prioritized Spyglass. His knowledge made him as valuable as The List. I could have grabbed him at any moment. Instead, Percival kept it a secret, putting us in a precarious position.”

* * *

They were walking down Tauentzienstraße, but then Percival stopped.

“Look,” Percival said. “The KGB are going to have some very angry bastards out there looking for Spyglass. We can’t trust any of the old usual methods.”

Crowley frowned. “It’s not that difficult to drive across the border these days.”

“It is when you’re wanted like Spyglass is. We have to walk him across personally, to ensure his safety in plain sight. We’ll use the demonstration tomorrow at Alexanderplatz—”

“—that’s insane.”

“All those protestors will make a great distraction.”

Crowley didn’t bother to hide her frustration. Percival stared back, contrary, maybe just for the sake of it.

“Spyglass is my guy, we’re going to do it my way,” they said.

She considered if it was worth arguing. The List could be anywhere. And time was running out for Spyglass. 

“Fine,” she said. “But we use my contact to get all our papers in order.”

“Alright. We have a deal?”

Crowley glared at him.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Percival said, and walked away.

* * *

“You see,” Beelzebub said. “I received a call from Percival that evening, Crowley. He ssZaid he had The List.”

* * *

“I’ll need a little time to wrap it up.” Percival stood in the disorder of their safehouse, plotting.

* * *

“And he knew the identity of Satchel.”

* * *

“Oh, I’m very close to Satchel.”

* * *

Crowley closed his eyes. He was exhausted. The betrayal on top of betrayal after betrayal on top of more betrayals didn’t even register. It just reminded him of how tired he’d become. Finally, he returned his focus to Beelzebub.

“And no one thought to tell me?” he asked. “Hmm?”

They both laughed softly, without happiness.

* * *

In a backlot, Percival got out of his car.

Jeremiel was waiting, wearing a new suit, now flanked by multiple KGB.

“You’re back quick, and with friends,” Percival said.

“I still have plenty of strings to pull in Heaven. They didn’t even notice I’d left. But, after my little accident, I thought…”

“Berlin’s a cruel mistress” 

“Especially for traitors,” the angel said.

“Oh, don’t be such a hypocrite. You’ve got a problem.”

“Yeah, I know. You have the fucking list.”

“We’ve been in the trenches long enough to know that at times like this, Berlin has its own set of rules. I can give you information that will keep the balance. Now, are you in or are you out?”

Jeremiel smiled. “Who says I want balance?”

“Fine, I can give you information that you can use to shore up this mini-godhood thing you seem to be building for yourself. Whatever. We’ve both got our own things here, is what I’m saying.”

* * *

Crowley found a pay phone and called Aziraphale. _Please be there, angel._

The line was picked up.

“It’s me,” Crowley said. “Listen, I talked to Uriel. We need to meet. ”

“You what?”

“Uriel. We need to meet somewhere safe.”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“Aziraphale?”

“I’m thinking.” Then, “Let’s meet at Grunewaldturm. Be careful, Crowley.”

Crowley didn’t want to hang up. “Okay, angel,” she said, and did.

* * *

Grunewaldturm turned out to be a tower in the middle of the forest that flanked West Berlin. It was easy enough to find, but also remote. It was past midnight and the only people lingering about had their own business to attend to. Crowley made sure she wasn’t noticed.

She spotted Aziraphale and faltered in her step from the wave of relief that hit her. 

He was looking around, and when he noticed her, he seemed to react similarly. 

“You weren’t followed?” he asked, when she got closer.

“No.”

They walked a ways away from the building, through some trees and onto a patch of grass. It was a nice view, from where they stood: of the Havel river and the trees beyond. They both grew silent, concentrating. They were well and truly alone.

“I like your… it’s two pieces?” Aziraphale said.

Beneath her jacket, Crowley was wearing a vinyl pencil skirt and lace top. Far be it from her to be off-trend. Aziraphale never commented on her outfits. She grinned. 

“Three, the top has two parts.”

“Well, you look beautiful.” He ducked his head to peer down at the ground, awkward.

Crowley blushed. Aziraphale never said things like that. Usually if she got a ‘good _lord_ ' she’d chalk up a look as passing muster.

“Um, thanks,” she said.

Aziraphale looked back up at her, and there was a charge between them that was more intense than it had ever been. They each took a step towards the other and then Crowley held her hands up, stopping whatever the momentum was leading to.

“Wait, Aziraphale we need to talk.”

So, they did. Crowley told him everything, about being called into Hell and what had happened so far in Berlin, and what Uriel had said today. 

Aziraphale was quiet. He paid Crowley complete attention and occasionally asked clarifying questions.

“So you don’t think they know about our Arrangement?”

“I don’t, I don’t think they’d handle it like this if they did. But they saw us together, and they never pay that kind of attention in the first place.”

“So they might know that we…”

“Yeah. I mean, I think they might. I could just say that I was tempting you. We could come up with some sort of story.”

“We’ll have to be more careful.”

Crowley frowned, trying to understand.

“More careful?"

“Um, can I kiss you?”

Crowley felt her eyebrows shoot up.

“Please. I mean, yeah.”

He put his hands around her waist, under her open coat, and she shuddered, to her eternal mortification, steadying herself on his arms. He held her close to him, and it felt so comfortable, so familiar, like this wasn’t its own sort of first. 

She carded her fingers through his hair—impossibly soft. She loved getting to really look at him, with almost no distance between them.

Aziraphale kissed her, and she sunk into it, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him closer.

His eyes were shut, and he sighed. Crowley found herself smiling, stupid.

“Why does kissing you feel like coming home?” he whispered.

Crowley stilled, suddenly the most serious she’d ever been, and he seemed to notice because he met her eyes through the glasses and then they were pulling at each other’s clothing. Crowley flung her glasses away and shrugged out of her coat. She tugged Aziraphale’s jacket the rest of the way off, and went for the zip of his trousers.

She wrapped her hand around him, almost pulling him closer and he was sliding her skirt up past her thighs as they tumbled to the ground, kissing, as she moved her underwear to the side and lined him up with her and he slid inside of her and she was wrapping her arms and legs around him, lost, found, so lost.

He buried his face in the bend of her neck and her fingers were in his hair again, clutching at him with her other hand through his sweater, feeling the muscles of his shoulders and then they weren’t wearing anything at all.

She reached down to grab his ass, exhaling as it drew him deeper into her. The truth of him at that deepest physical part of her, moving through her like a wave of light. She moaned, pushed herself down on him, and he mirrored her, perfectly. He moved in opposition to bring them closer, a slide of them against each other as they fell faster toward an edge, together.

She stared up into the dark sky and realized there were tears in her eyes, not from an orgasm that hadn’t happened yet, but because of… this. She closed her eyes, then, and they flowed sideways past the corners of her eyes and into her hairline.

He kissed her jaw and she turned her head. The movement brushed his lips over her cheek to her mouth, and their lips parted and she whispered, “Please, please, fuck, please,” against the kiss.

Aziraphale shifted his weight, so that he could reach down between them and touch her as they fucked. The sensation of his fingers, finding that part of her so quickly, pulled her the rest of the way over and she was alight with it and coming in sobs and whimpers. From far away, she heard his own breath change and the center of her was awash with an infinite brightness.

For moments, they were still, not looking at each other, and then Aziraphale pressed a kiss to her cheek and moved away, facing the treeline.

She looked at the back of him as she willed her eyes dry. A part of her wondered what his face held, what he was thinking, but it was nothing against how desperately she didn’t want to know.

She sat up, and he turned around, with a smile. “Still just the two of us.”

“Cheers for checking.” She tried to think of something to say. “So, how was your day?” 

Aziraphale gave her a look that was half-a-frown and still half-a-smile. “Um, better than yours?” He moved to sit next to her, where they could stare out over the trees. 

“I had a rather frustrating time trying to figure out what was going on with Jeremiel. Normally I’d have tried to contact someone in Heaven but it didn’t seem prudent, given the extenuating circumstances. Do you know how I even found out? One of his… human agents showed up on my doorstep before sunrise, after you left, asking me what they should do. I didn’t know Jeremiel had given them my address,” he said.

“And then later, he calls me. I have two phones—two lines, you know, to let me know he’s back and that there was no need for me to worry about contacting Heaven or anything like that. Not that I was planning to.”

“Good,” Crowley said. “Good, I think we should keep Heaven and Hell out of this as much as possible, ‘til it’s over.”

“What’s ‘over’, do you think?”

“Beelzebub and Uriel want The List. You realize it probably incriminates us both, right?”

She watched the realization dawn on his face. _Aziraphale._

“I don’t plan on letting that happen, angel. Percival and I are getting Spyglass out of the East, tomorrow. I can… I can make sure he forgets information that might put us at risk. I just need time with him—don’t do that.”

“Do what?” Aziraphale said, like his face hadn’t held utter disapproval the moment Crowley mentioned altering Bakhtin’s memory.

Don’t judge me for doing what needs to be done to keep us both out of trouble. Do you think I _want_ to? I don’t want to do any of this. But that’s my plan: find and destroy The List, rescue Bakhtin and make sure there’s nothing about The Arrangement for him to tell anyone about.”

Aziraphale pouted. “I suppose you’re right.”

“I am.”

They lapsed into silence for several minutes. It made Crowley restless, and she hoped for a subject change.

“So was this demon, Istasha... when–when you said you had lots of other people to fraternize with—”

That still hurt, one hundred and twenty years later, and Crowley couldn’t bring herself to tell Aziraphale that it had always been just him. Maybe one day she’d get over it. But, she wasn’t there yet.

“I actually hadn’t even met her then,” she said. “We met in the late-eighteenth century. But yeah, I guess we were friends, as much as two demons can be friends with each other.”

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” he said, terribly sincere.

Crowley grimaced. “I didn’t have a loss. Besides, you aren’t supposed to be sympathetic towards a dead demon.”

“But, you cared about her.”

Crowley looked away. 

“Did you know the angel Uriel and I used to be friends, Before?” she said.

The expression of surprise answered that, but after a second Aziraphale said, “No? No, I didn’t know that. We’ve never really talked about Before.”

“You know I made stars.”

“You told me for the first time that night we snuck up that hill near Llanthony Priory.”

“Sometimes it’s like I can see them, in the back of your eyes.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth and closed it.

“We were friends. Probably thousands of years. Though, you remember how time felt back then. It didn’t have the weight it does now. It was all closer together. She was doing things with radiation and energy, which I was using in my work, and we grew to really like each other, as we spent so much time together. She’s so brilliant, angel. I don’t know why I thought what we had would matter when things fractured. She looked at me and saw an enemy, that’s all I was to her. Something to be destroyed.”

She continued, “Gabriel and Michael had, to be frank, always been terrible, so I wasn’t surprised by them, but I was, when she turned on me. I was stupid. So young.”

“And you’ve been seeing her because of all this,” Aziraphale said, faintly.

“Yeah. I’m still angry, apparently. Properly demonic of me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“‘s not my point, anyway,” said Crowley, not quite sure what her point was. “You asked about Tash.” Shit, Aziraphale would notice the nickname. Oh well, too late. 

“I didn’t mean to bring up anything uncomfortable for you, Crowley.”

“Oh, stop. You asked about Tash. I did like her. I enjoyed spending time with her. She was funny and sometimes it was good to have someone… y’know, to catch up with.”

“That can be nice.”

“But, she was a demon.”

“You’ve said that.”

“That’s not what I mean. She was a demon, and I liked her for a demon. I learned to not expect more from her when it wasn’t something she had the capacity for. I’ve learned my lesson, with people, supernatural, humans, it’s all the same. People can feel and do certain things and, sometimes there’s stuff in there worth liking, but most of them have a somewhat limited range, and you can’t get mad at a duck for not being a fish… or…but there’s still things worth liking about ducks...” she trailed off.

Aziraphale’s face softened.

"Don’t. I can see it on your face. Don’t put your _compliments_ on me,” she hissed.

He rolled his eyes.“Fine. How’s this, I think there’s much more to you than what Hell gives you credit for.”

“Well, yeah.” Crowley squirmed. “It’s just… it’s work. I don’t need them to tell me what’s important. Same goes for you, by the way.”

“You don’t need me to tell you what’s imp—”

“What? No, you’re—you’re much more than Heaven gives you credit for. You’re… so good. Really good. Not like what they call Good.” And such a bastard, but now wasn’t the time to say that. “The moment you gave your sword away, I knew you were.”

Something changed. Aziraphale was staring at her with that expression she couldn’t make sense of, again. The air smelled different, like ozone. 

He kissed her, and Crowley felt the hairs on her arms stand up

Aziraphale smoothed the flat of his hand over her stomach, and lower. She was still wet, open, and she pressed against his hand as he pushed fingers into her. He fucked her, like that. 

Crowley felt like an electrical wire or–something– _fuck_ , with Aziraphale’s power rolling through her every time they did this. She was already hooked. _Yes, angel. Channel your divine love into me until it runs me through like a fucking carbon-arc and it shines out of my eyes like I’m a searchlight._ This was so hazardous to her health. 

She grabbed the grass under her fingers and tried to form words. Aziraphale slowed, took his hand away and leaned over her. She blinked heavy-lidded at him, spectacularly offended but still only able to hiss out “I didn’t say to stop.”

“I think I got a bit carried away.”

“Carried away.” She rolled over to her knees and had to take a moment, then, as she swayed slightly. She grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him onto his back.

He moved up to his elbows, still looking concerned. “I wasn’t, ah, doing a very good job of keeping things in the corporation, so to say. Got a bit,” He blushed. “... got a bit over-excited.”

Crowley didn’t feel like she was vibrating anymore, and her head had mostly cleared. She sat back onto her heels.

“Angel, do you like compliments that much?” 

Aziraphale laughed, and laughed. Crowley found herself smiling, but she wasn’t following. “Not sure if that’s a yes,” she said.

“Why would I tell you, you unholy temptation?” 

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her down, so fast that she let out a squeak.

Afterwards, they lay beside each other. 

“Percival’s trying to set me up.”

“Are you surprised?” He turned to see her better.

“Not really. These relationships aren’t real, they’re just a means to an end.”

The flinch was almost reflexive, there and gone, but Crowley noticed. 

“You don’t mean that,” Aziraphale said

Crowley shook her head. “Not you.”

His face was intent, searching, and she had to make herself hold their eye contact.

“You know,” he said, eventually. “When you’re telling the truth, you look different. Your eyes change.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she said with a sigh. “I better not do it again.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s going to get me killed one day.”


	9. I Ran (So Far Away)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone plays Tetris. Crowley goes swimming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long chapter, and everything gets worse before it gets better. If you need some resolution with your angst, I’d recommend waiting on this chapter until you can read the following one (which also has massive amounts of angst, but leaves Aziraphale and Crowley in a better place).

* * *

**The East**

* * *

Percival and Crowley made their way into the East through the tunnels. Once aboveground on the other side, they traveled by foot to one of Merkel’s many safehouses.

Inside, there were a handful of computers lined up, mostly unoccupied, though one human was playing some sort of game, pixelated blocks falling on the screen. Others pushed equipment around, busy.

Percival scanned the room as they moved further in. “Well, I am impressed. I thought Merkel here was just a good bartender.”

Merkel swatted the young man playing video games—who got up and left. Merkel leaned against the desk.

A middle-aged, tired looking human stood near a wall. Crowley and Percival came to stop in front of him.

So, this was Spyglass. He seemed small, like he was huddled in on himself. Unassuming. The lingering traces of a life spent amongst the rank and file—Crowley considered the years of following orders, only to go and do this.

“You smell like a Stasi officer,” she told him. Merkel passed her a kit, which she pressed into Bakhtin’s (soft, nervous) hands. “Shave off that moustache. Use that soap and cologne. It’s from the West.”

“You can’t take anything from the East,” Percival added.

“Merkel will give you some clothes,” Crowley said.

Merkel had gone to retrieve the brown paper bag of new things. “Right this way, Mr. Spyglass.” He put a hand on Bakhtin’s shoulder and led him away.

* * *

Nearby and too close, Jeremiel’s men were in a room on the upper floor of a building. They were passing out guns, and planning.

“Jeremiel says the traitor's in that building. Stay alert.”

The man at the window checked the magazine of the Dragunov in his hands. He moved to a window, taking up a position. He passed the barrel of the rifle through the slats that had been nailed up, and sighted down onto the protestors walking below. 

At street level, one of Jeremiel’s men sat in a car. He tugged off his neck brace and tossed it onto the empty seat beside him.

* * *

**Hell: Debriefing**

* * *

Crowley sat back in his chair. “It should have been easy,” he said. “The plan was sound. Whatever went wrong did so because someone wanted it to. Someone from the inside.”

“Were you betrayed by a fellow agent?” Beelzebub asked quietly, dangerously.

“You mean Satchel.” Uriel said.

Crowley regarded them both. “Would that be unheard of?”

* * *

Merkel unwrapped a tea towel, revealing a pistol. “Per your request.” He presented it to Crowley, who took it and checked it over.

Percival noticed, from across the room. They were changing into a uniform. “You won’t be needing that,” they called over. Crowley and Merkel turned to look. “It’ll be worse if they find it on you.”

Crowley didn’t acknowledge that, and turned back to Merkel. “Everything else ready?”

“Yes. Everything you requested.”

“I’m ready.” Bakhtin had returned. He was wearing the new clothes—a tacky, patterned shirt, face shaved clean. He radiated apprehension.

Crowley imagined a possible scenario where Spyglass, thinking he was working with MI6, realized he was being shepherded by 3 demons.

“What do you think of his shirt?” she asked Merkel, tone conspiratorial.

Merkel considered the question. “I wouldn’t be caught dead in it, but for him, it’s perfect.”

“Stand over here,” she told Spyglass.

In front of the camera, Spyglass remained hesitant, unsure. He was trusting them to know what came next.

“Now look like a free man,” Crowley said.

Spyglass removed his glasses. Merkel took the photo.

Afterwards, Spyglass sat there, looking down at his new passport. He was across from Crowley, at a table. She wanted to talk to him, before the rest of this was to begin. She leaned in. 

He also leaned in, and he spoke first. “Did they tell you I memorized the whole list?”

“Yes.”

“I realize I may not be as valuable to some people,” he said. “And some people may even want me dead, but… what choice do I have?”

“You’re no good to me dead, and I’ve never failed a mission.” Crowley said, because both things were true.

Spyglass held her gaze. “I know.” he said, and he did. He thought she was a human, but he knew more about her than almost anyone.

* * *

The closest Crowley had ever gotten to being discorporated was in 1556, in China. The Wei River Valley ended up as the site of the worst earthquake in recorded human history, Hell had been overly excited about it—had sent him there a month early with minimal information and a _“Look forward to your report!”_ from Dagon.

In the days before, the world felt like it was holding its breath. A _between_ hung there in the air, calmer, somehow, than in previous weeks. Everything slowed, became sharper, before a promised ending.

* * *

As they sat together at the cheap formica table, Crowley realized that their part of the universe had drawn this bit of itself in, and that the breath out hadn’t come. 

A door opened and suddenly everyone was on their feet. The door closed. Crowley had the gun up and pointed.

It was a human woman, and a child. Percival had already relaxed and gone to them and Crowley was still pointing the gun and Percival was saying, with increasing volume, “Hey—hey, HEY—hey—it’s his family.”

Crowley stopped aiming and shook her head. “This was not part of the plan.”

Spyglass hurried over to pick up his daughter. She was holding a teddy bear. Standing in front of them, Percival turned to fully face her, defiant. “Part of mine,” they said.

“Please,” Spyglass said.

“I’ll take the wife and kid. You just have to deal with Spyglass,” Percival said.

Before the earthquake, Crowley had tried to tell people to leave—that it was a perfect time to travel—even turned to property destruction. Crowley had tried to take away their reason to stay, while there was still time.

Crowley looked back over her shoulder at Merkel, who shrugged. “I don’t know if I have enough passports,” he said, in a tone that made it clear he was going to try.

* * *

“Percival,” he said to Beelzebub. “Your old golden child.”

* * *

The entirety of Alexanderplatz, all 80,000 meters of the square and beyond, was filled with protestors. They funneled in through the surrounding streets, like the arteries and veins to a heart. Critical mass. Overflowing.

In the safehouse, they all stood in the foyer: humans and demons. The front door of the building led onto the street outside.

Bakhtin was bent down in front of his daughter, telling her that she needed to listen to her mother now. To be his strong girl. 

Crowley watched them. “We have to go,” she said.

Spyglass kissed his daughter on the cheek and hugged her goodbye. 

As Crowley stepped outside, past Percival, who was holding the door—they said “See you in the West,” to her, and to Spyglass, “Good luck.”

The group stepped into the march of humans on the street.

Jeremiel’s man in the car watched them step out, and pressed his radio. “They just left the building.”

They were visible through the sight of the sniper rifle.

_“40 meters and closing.”_

Percival looked up from the ground, where they all still walked crowded together, back at the window.

“I have them in sight,” said the sniper, to the men with him in the upper room.

On the ground, Merkel put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. 

In unison, umbrellas opened, blossomed above their heads as most of the crowd raised them up.

 _Humans_ , Crowley thought, with affection.

“What’s happening?” asked a man in the room. The sniper said, “I lost them.”

“This was never part of the plan,” Percival said, at her shoulder.

Crowley smiled. “It was part of mine.”

Percival reached out to Spyglass’s wife and daughter—shepherded them away. Spyglass watched them go.

Over the radios: _“It’s the umbrellas, I can’t see anything.”_

_“Neither can I.”_

_“Who can see them? Report!”_

Spyglass’s family ducked into the backseat of a car. Percival stood at the open door, looking over their head. 

_“There are too many people.”_

A man holding one of the radios had a puncture wound in his cheek.

The birds had flown away first.

Spyglass jerked backwards.

Crowley spun towards him.

The world began to exhale.

Smoke curled and danced through the air, from the silencer at the end of a pistol. Standing outside of the car, Percival held it low, stabilized in the bend of their arm.

Crowley couldn’t see where the shot had come from. She went to Bakhtin, folded him into her arms and led him out of the crowd.

_“I have a shot.”_

A bullet chipped into the stone of the closest wall.

_“Is the target down?”_

They crouched by a parked Volvo. Crowley grabbed hold of the side mirror and broke it off. She angled it in her hands. Where was the sniper?

_“No visual, we need to move.”_

There: the barrel pulling back through the slats of a window. 

“Stay low,” she told Spyglass, as she pulled him back up to his feet. They rushed across the street, and he groaned beside her. In her peripheral vision, she saw blood on his jacket. They were going to the enemy, around the back of the building.

“I need to deal with this now, or we’ll never get across.” Crowley told him.

She took out her gun. “In here,” she said. They pushed through the back doors doors, hurried through the lobby, and came to a staircase. 

Spyglass lay down on the steps. He stared up at Crowley. “I don’t want to die,” he said.

“You’re not going to die,” she said. And she meant it, like she always did.

Inside of and past her corporation, she stretched herself out, opened herself to any trace of supernatural. They were four floors up. All miracled. All fucking miracled.

She refocused on Spyglass, and snapped her fingers. He froze. She crouched down in front of him.

“Tell me everything you know about Anthony Crowley. Tell me everything you know about Aziraphale. Tell me everything you know about Percival. Tell me everything you know about Istasha. Tell me everything you know about Jeremiel, and tell me everything you know about Satchel.” With enormous effort, she slowed them down, in time.

He did. And she talked to him as she so carefully rearranged the pieces, like surgery, like art, til her and Aziraphale were mostly gone from his memories. It was an alteration through multiple planes of reality, using the strongest powers she could access. And she tried her hardest to smooth out the holes, to fill them in with new information that fit, with guesses that she hoped were correct. She tried her hardest to leave Bakhtin as whole as he’d been when she began.

When she was done, she let him go, and he looked at her, calmer. “Stay here,” she said.

She walked over and into the elevator.

Why did she want to pray?

She re-checked her gun.

* * *

In the Loess Plateau, around the Wei River Valley, millions of people lived in brilliantly designed homes set into its high cliffs. The soil there was soft. Prone to erosion. Susceptible to outside force. Crowley decided to be there, when it happened. She would stop what she could.

* * *

She faced outwards, and raised her gun. The elevator doors opened. In the widening crack between, she saw part of a man, a torso, and she fired. He dived out of the way, and she heard him yelling to someone. 

“Get on the radio!”

Another voice, “I’m trying!”

“Hurry!”

Careful, quiet footsteps came back up the stairs. From further away, “She’s here! Hurry!”

Crowley ran at the man coming up the stairs. She grabbed his gun, to send the shot he fired wild—while she shoved the barrel of her own into his gut and pulled the trigger. He jerked from that, and yelled out, and she walked him back into the wall. She threw an elbow into his face and got the gun out of his hands. And then he shoved her away, with strength no human naturally possessed. She tried to shoot him again, but he caught hold of the gun and tore it from her hands. It fell to the floor. He punched her in the jaw, and she stumbled backwards from, catching herself on a railing.

He was already lunging at her. She grabbed him—took the opportunity to push him into the other man who’d come up the stairs. She kicked that one in the groin. He went down.

Back to grappling with the first man: he was throwing punches and she was blocking them as best she could. The blows were landing hard on her arms.

He backed her up against the wall, and the stability behind her was the leverage she needed to push off of it and take him to the ground with her. She went to stand, and then something crashed into her face. She reeled back onto the floor, desperately trying to focus. It was a weapons’ bag. The other one—he was coming for her. She flung herself back up and managed to duck his swing, to close the distance of his reach and push at his side to throw him off balance.

In his guard, she punched at his hips, was able to straighten enough to aim her strikes at his head, repeatedly. Crowley seized the bag and ripped it away. She threw it over the railing, where it clattered down below. Above him on the stairs, she kicked him with all of her strength and sent him tumbling. And then the first man caught her and threw her down after.

A wall stopped her momentum—stopped everything, and she saw static at the edges of her vision—heard herself moan out from the impact. _Get up, get up._ She was trying.

The first man was staggering towards her, down the stairs. The front of his clothes were a mess of blood from the gut shot. There was blood at his mouth, dripping from his lips. He leaned against a railing. She crouched below him, feeling like a cornered animal.

He screamed and kicked out at her. She yelled and did her best to block it. They kicked and punched and screamed at each other, and she managed to connect with his abdomen a few good times. He doubled over, coughing.

She couldn’t get discorporated right now. He lunged for her again and she kicked him in the stomach. He collapsed down onto the steps. She began to walk down, past him, and heard the man farther above yell as he threw another weapons bag. They were stocked up. It crashed too close, a few feet above her head. She walked faster.

He ran down behind her, and Crowley heard the click of the switchblade opening. She turned to face him as he slashed out. She dodged, darted back, waiting for the chance to grab his wrist and then, with a cry, she did. She pulled him down, going for an angle his body couldn’t allow, and the knife dropped to the floor. She snatched it up and sunk it into his back—once, twice. He got to his feet, to face her. She sliced across his thigh. She stabbed him in the chest. He tried to pull her hands away. He got his other hand on her face and pushed, attempting to wrench her off. She held on, furious.

The first man appeared— _Satan_ —and also grabbed her. He yanked her back, and it sent them both stumbling out. He fell down, again. He was crawling up the stairs, still trying, clutching at his waist, blood all over the stone. He would have died by now, if he was normal. But then the light flickered out, and he fell backwards. Gone.

The other man had gotten the knife free of his chest, and was pointing it at Crowley, so weakly that it almost seemed like he was offering it. He was trying his hardest to hurt her—kill her. She snatched it out of his grip and stabbed him again. She took hold of him and leveraged him over her shoulder in a throw down the stairs, a finishing move, and then she went for that weapons bag.

There was a gun. She flipped it over, dug around the bag. No magazine. “Fuck,” she said, with feeling.

She went back to the bodies, checked their jackets and pockets, nothing. She continued down the stairs. Spyglass met her. He was moving slowly, and he was holding up two fingers. “Two more,” he whispered. “There’s two more.”

She walked past him, holding the useless (well, not completely) rifle. She could hear them coming, from the hall. She hid beside the doorway and raised it like a club.

The hands holding the gun appeared first, and she struck them as hard as she could. The gun flew free, and then she was turning on the man. She struck him in the crotch, in the throat, and again. He fell and she spun into the reach of the next one, getting his arm past her body so that he shot beyond her and she fought to pull the gun free as he punched at her kidneys with his free hand They grappled and she rolled into it, throwing him to the ground hard and getting hold of the weapon. She shot him in the head.

“Wait! Don’t shoot!” said the other man, from the ground. She steadied her aim, and fired. The shell pinged on the marble floor.

Crowley went back for Spyglass. She put an arm around him, and they were rounding the final bit of stair back to the ground floor when suddenly there was yelling and men firing on them. She shot back, and the men dodged out of sight. She pulled Spyglass backwards and they went up the stairs again, into an apartment whose door to the landing was ajar. She shut it behind them and helped Spyglass up against the wall. Shots pinged through the wood. The men would need to reload.

“Go!” she yelled, and she and Bakhtin ran past the door, deeper into the apartment and through a second doorway as shots followed. People lived here, there were clothes hanging, all the signs of a life lived around them. Wherever those humans were, they were gone from this home.

“You need to stop that bleeding,” she told Bakhtin. She couldn’t try to heal him, not when things could still get so much worse. She checked the clip of the pistol. Three bullets left. “Search for anything. Alcohol, rags.”

She hurried back into the first room, and waited beyond the immediate path of the door. Footsteps were approaching. She raised the gun. 

A man kicked open the door and as he stepped into sight, she shot him in the head, through his eye. Blood splattered onto the wood.

The other man hung back and she used that opportunity to retreat again to further inside. They traded off shots and her clip emptied. _Fuck._ She hid, and waited. He came into the room, firing once, twice, and then he stopped. Was that it? He’d gotten off a lot of shots.

He was on the other side of the wall, past the second door from the main room. She switched the position of the gun in her hand.

He swung around and she dove forward, striking him in the face with the empty pistol as he lunged at her. He got a clip out, tried to reload. She went for his hands and arms, getting him to drop it. 

It was the man from the cinema, whose face she’d stabbed the keys into.

They swung at each other and she shoved him off balance, but as she did, he caught her by the shoulders and flung her back into a shelf. It crumpled beneath her.

Spyglass sprung up behind the man and broke a bottle over his head. The man staggered. But, he recovered too quickly and grabbed Spyglass and threw him out of the way.

Crowley focused up at him. The man was stumbling around, he bumped into the doorframe and went to his knees to retrieve his gun. He crawled towards the clip, a bit further away. He started to reload. Crowley yelled and ran at him, she wrapped her arms around his waist and sent them into a table. She rolled off and he scrambled for a vase, which he threw at her.

She picked up a big floor lamp. It broke in half as she brought it down on him. He stumbled away and she lunged at him. They spun around, almost like some partnered step, and he threw a punch at her. They traded off hits, increasingly sloppy, desperate to kill each other. Her heartbeat was in her ears, and her thoughts had narrowed down to _kill, survive, kill._

She shoved him into a bookcase and he in turn sent her down onto a chest, which shattered beneath her. He staggered away. If she was human, she’d have multiple broken bones by now. They were surrounded by the debris of the apartment. A life in rubble.

She rolled over and got her back against a wall. There was a table next to her with cooking tools, including a hot plate. He was crawling towards her. With great effort, she stood. She picked up the hot plate. It was heavy. He grabbed a broken off stool leg. He raised his arm up to hit her and she slammed the big metal rectangle into his knee and then up into his face. She pulled back and hit him as hard as she could with it in the head, and the force of that sent them both falling back down again.

On her back, she coughed. He was also coughing, drawing in wet, pained gaps. Something in the noises he was making sounded wrong. Something had broken somewhere in his body. She slowly rolled over again—to get back up. She made it to her knees. There was broken glass everywhere. It embedded itself in her palms. There was a corkscrew a few feet away. She struggled towards it. She picked it up and put the point of the screw between her fingers. Finally, she stood, having to lean against a closet door to stay upright. Her legs still gave out, and she sunk back to the floor. She tried again. He was doing the same, He fell back down, and went to clamber back to his feet.

They stood facing each other, wobbly, taking faltering steps closer together.

He threw a few sloppy, exhausted punches that she was able to duck, and she swiped at him with the corkscrew. He swung again and she grabbed his arm and drove the point of her makeshift weapon into his armpit, going for the artery. They both screamed.

He wrapped his arm around her and dragged her backwards, while it was still buried handle-deep. His arm tight around her throat. “Take this, bitch,” he spat. 

She choked on the air she tried to draw in, and with enormous effort she tore the corkscrew free and sent it behind her into his face. 

It connected. He screamed and let go. She pulled back and drove it into his throat, yelling out as she did. She pushed it deeper, and hissed “Am I your bitch, now?”

She threw him away, to the floor. She lifted the corkscrew, ready to stab him again, but he didn’t get up. 

Spyglass stumbled into the doorframe, wrapping duct tape around his middle. He’d taped rags down over the wound. Good. She got up, took hold of him by his jacket, and walked him along behind her.

They re-emerged into the stairwell, and she bent down to retrieve another discarded pistol. She poured the tiniest bit of power that she could spare through her cooperation. It didn’t heal her, but it kept her conscious and walking. She led him back outside, as she heard a door at the other end of the building open and close. She looked behind her, could barely manage to sense anything, but she knew she’d gotten most of them. She’d done the best she could.

They came back outside.

“Halt! Was machen Sei heir?” It was a Stasi officer, standing by a car.

“Moment, bitte,” Spyglass said, holding up a hand. “Moment, bitte.”

Crowley raised the gun. “Hände hinter den Kopf!” she yelled, putting a protective arm over Bakhtin. 

The officer complied. He put his hands on his head and Crowley walked past with Bakhtin, to the car. 

“Runter! Sofort!” she yelled at the officer, then, “Get in!” to Spyglass who was struggling with his side of the door. “Get in!”

She circled around to the driver’s side. The keys were still there and she turned them. She pulled out of the parking area and onto the street.

Bakhtin turned to her. “You need to work on your German.”

Crrowley honked the horn at some humans to get them to move out of the way.

“It’s horrible,” he said.

She stared at him, disbelieving, but then a hand slammed onto her window and she swerved. The keys man, he ran around the front of the car and climbed onto the hood. He punched the front window.

“What the hell!” she screamed, picking up her pistol. She fired through the glass. He collapsed. 

She slammed on the brakes—people were screaming, and he slid back off. He got to his feet. She stomped on the accelerator and hit him. He went under the wheels, and the car jerked as they drove over him.

Spyglass yelled in shock, and then groaned in pain. He bent over to retrieve a first aid kit from below his seat. He was Stasi, of course he’d know to look.

A sedan pulled into the street behind them, tires squealing. Behind Bakhtin and Crowley, the back window crumbled from a gunshot. They ducked in their seats and the car pulled up on Bakhtin’s side. The window behind his head shattered.

Crowley slammed the accelerator to the floor, pushing their own car back in front. She aimed behind them, and fired at the driver. The sedan went wild, hit a parked car without slowing, and flipped.

Crowley looked at Spyglass. He hadn’t been hurt further. Good. “Fasten your seatbelt,” she said.

Another car pulled in front of them, cutting them off. _Fuck._ Crowley switched to reverse. They dodged the car behind them, a civilian going the right way, and they sped backwards into a busy intersection. Spyglass was shouting in alarm. The other car followed them. A truck slammed into it, sending it spinning. _Yes._

She kept driving, and then turned the car around in the proper direction. The street she turned onto was free of the crowds, alongside a narrow part of the Spree. No more cars came.

She pulled up to a stop, along the water, breathing hard and looking around.

“You all right?” she asked him.

“Yeah,” he breathed.

She started to say “We have to go—” but everything lurched from the impact of the vehicle that drove into them with a crash, and they were sliding, and the car went over the edge. Water slammed up through the empty windows.

The man in the vehicle watched the Stasi car sink, and winced as he touched his neck.

The water was already at their shoulders. 

“It’s so cold!” Bakhtin yelled.

“Open your door!” Crowley said, as she grabbed the handle on her side.

“My foot is… it’s stuck!”

She looked back at him. She reached below the water and they both pulled, tried to get him free.

The water was at their chins.

“Just breathe!” she told him, and they both drew a final breath before the water closed over them.

* * *

The earth shattered. There were no words to describe the scope of it. The mountains moved. 

Crowley was in someone’s home, trying to keep the walls from crumbling around the humans who hid there with him. And he did. His power kept the walls strong, and people wept and prayed, and then it was over, in seconds. Hell on earth—for only seconds.

He didn’t anticipate the landslide.

He had been laughing, accepting hugs, and they were beginning to celebrate and then the house had closed around them all like a fist. He’d found himself buried under the earth. Surrounded by pressure, darkness, and worst of all: silence. He’d realize later, that he must have been unconscious for some time. 

He couldn’t move. One of his legs wasn’t right. It had to be broken in multiple places. Hours passed like that, in agony. He could draw air into his lungs, but his consciousness was still slipping away. Oxygen was running out. He tried to move a hand, and a few small rocks shifted. He pushed them down, around his fingers.

* * *

They returned to pulling at the part of the dashboard that had trapped him. She couldn’t move it. She tried harder. She tried to miracle it loose. Nothing happened.

And she realized he wasn’t struggling to free himself anymore. He wasn’t moving at all. She grabbed him by the shoulders. She poured power into him, everything she had, and tried to bring him back. But, she couldn't grab enough of it. There was nothing left. He remained still. 

Yuri Bakhtin had gentle hands. He had told his daughter to be strong. He had trusted Crowley. He had been brave—had fought to survive. Crowley had failed him.

Her own vision was flickering at the edges, fuzzing out into darkness. Her body was dying. 

Crowley looked at him for a final time, and with sorrow, turned to swim through the car’s open window. 

She broke through the surface of the water drawing broken, desperate breaths.

* * *

“So,” Beelzebub said. “Yeah. I think I understand everything. You made your plan. And you failed to get the high-value assZzset safely across to the West.”

“You sent me into a fucking hornet’s nest," Crowley whisperered. He met zir gaze. "I was made by Jeremiel and the KGB from the moment my feet touched the ground. Maybe even before. But then you knew that, didn’t you? You had your doubts about Percival, and you used me to shake them down.”

Beelzebub looked back, and didn’t flinch.“Ready when you are,” ze said.

* * *

Crowley had wrapped her coat tight and was limping across the street. A Stasi car with its sirens on sped past. She hoped her dark clothing hid the water, hid the blood. She couldn’t do anything about it. She couldn’t heal herself. She was totally tapped out. 

She stumbled into an alley. She wouldn't be able to defend herself, if someone found her. Not for long. She didn't have any mortal wounds but her corporation had been pushed to its limit and she was struggling to stay upright. 

“Hey—”

A man grabbed her and she tried to defend herself. 

“W—woah, it’s me. It’s me.”

It was Merkel.

* * *

It had taken him days to dig free of the rubble. He had enough power then, to keep going, to make the air breathable, but he’d emerged to devastation. There were survivors, of course. Wonderful, brave survivors. He’d helped where he could. Put the parts he couldn’t do anything about in his letters to Hell and took credit for it. He never saw anyone from that house again.

* * *

Crowley had told Bakhtin she’d never failed a mission. By Hell’s standards, that was true. But her failings of people? That went back to Creation. It was selfish of her: forgetting that.

She was sitting in front of a fire, at some different safehouse, and Merkel wrapped a blanket around her.

“I’ll let Lord Beelzebub know you’re alive,” he said, taking a seat beside her.

“He’s dead. Spyglass is dead,” she said. _whatifwhatifwhatifwhatif_

“And you’re alive.”

It was all falling into place. She was beginning to understand, finally. “They’re all listening to me. They knew. The KGB knew everything. Jeremiel knew. I need to get across.”

Merkel reached out to touch her shoulder. She was shivering. But then, warmth spread through her body. The most intense pain she felt softened.

“I’ll tell them you need more power,” he said.

* * *

Merkel approached someone who held a can of spray paint—painting a canvas. They wore a gas mask.

In German, Merkel said, “Jan, I need to borrow the car.” He made a show of setting down some supplies, and took a pair of keys from a nearby table.

Some time later, a Volvo pulled up to a checkpoint.

“Guten tag, Botschafter.” said the officer at the gate, taking the papers Merkel offered.

“Dankeschön,” Merkel said. He was wearing a suit, with thick glasses. No one seemed to notice the hair.

* * *

Uriel sat across from Bakhtin’s wife and daughter, speaking to them softly. Her words were calming them, comforting them. Several West Berlin police stood at a respectable distance. 

“Mein Beileid,” she said, and stood.

Percival was lingering in the doorway, rubbing a hand across their head, pinching the bridge of their nose. They hadn’t taken the appearance of Uriel, or the news of Heaven’s involvement, well.

Uriel walked over to him. They faced each other, in the doorway.

“Well,” she said, after a moment. “I expected more from Hell than a royal goat fuck.”

“I know. We’re sorry—oh wait,” Percival snapped back. “You lot don’t have your own private Stasi agent, do you?”

Uriel didn’t blink. “Not one with a photographic memory,” she said mildly.

* * *

Merkel popped open the boot of the Volvo, and removed the false bottom. Crowley lay there, still wrapped in the blanket. He helped her out.

* * *

“We need to get with Crowley, get on the same page. We need that list. Now more than ever,” Uriel said.

That seemed to confuse Percival. “Crowley?” they asked.

Uriel tilted her head. “She made it out.”

Percival pulled a cigarette out from behind their ear. “Right.” They produced a lighter, lit it. “You know, a beautiful Italian girl once said to me, ‘Percival, you can’t unfuck what’s been fucked.’ Women are always getting in the way of progress, aren’t they?” 

They turned and left. Uriel watched them go.

* * *

Crowley was in her hotel room, tearing it apart—looking for the devices she now knew had to be there. She flung the bedspread onto the floor, opened up the phone, picked up a lamp—nothing. The TV was on.

_What no one in Germany believed possible has happened tonight. The Wall is coming down. The Wall is down._

She felt under the desk, got on her knees to look, and couldn’t find anything.

_The Wall is crumbling. The sledgehammers in the hands of men not born when it went up, tear into it._

She sat on the floor, curled up into herself with her hands up by her ears. She was crumbling. She had failed. Spyglass was dead. She’d just killed more humans in a day than she’d killed in 500 years. For what, for what? Someone had The List. She’d been betrayed. Her and Aziraphale—it was all going to catch up with them.

_And behind it, the East German soldiers tried to stop the tide. Water cannons were brought out. But, the West Berliners were determined. One West Berliner sprayed champagne back._

Percival had told her.

_“You know if I was to follow you, I mean properly, you’d never fucking know.”_

Where was it? What had he done?

She had visited his safehouse, and handed him her coat. 

She got up to take it from the chair it was draped over. She felt down the lapel. There was a wire. She ripped the fabric, and pulled the UHF device free.

_It is the moment Berliners have waited 28 years for. Even the East Germans seem exhilarated. A symbolic breach in the structure that cost hundreds of lives and separated friends, families, and lovers, for decades._

* * *

"I found a Russian UHF device in my coat after Spyglass died. I now believe it was Percival who planted it. Made it look like Heaven.” _Made it look like Aziraphale._

* * *

Someone knocked. Crowley looked up, and went to retrieve her gun from the table—for whatever good it might do. She could feel power again, trickling back to her. Hopefully it would be enough, for whatever came next. 

She walked to the door. Someone knocked again. 

“It’s me.” _Aziraphale._

She opened it and paced back into the room. Aziraphale followed her, closing the door. 

“Why are you here?” Crowley said, exhausted. “You need to leave Berlin.” 

“Well, when I didn’t hear from you, I got worried,” he said, sounding like it. 

Crowley pulled her sweater off. She heard Aziraphale gasp behind her. She knew her back was a mess. She’d deal with it later. 

“How naive can you be,” Crowley said. She snapped on another shirt. “We chose this life, angel.” She swung around to face him. “This only ends one way.” 

“What are you talking about?” he said, so softly. 

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” she said. “The Arrangement was never going to outlast eternity, Aziraphale, and don’t pretend that you’ve never thought about it. Not right now.” She marched past him to grab her surviving jacket. 

He turned, “Crowley, surely it can’t be as bad as all that.” 

“It is. Percival set us both up.'' She picked up the UHF device and handed it to Aziraphale. He stared down at it. 

“So I’d think it was you,” she said, and shook her head. “I didn’t think they’d really manage. I’ve gotten so used to Heaven and Hell being clueless about Earth that I didn’t account for one of ours actually getting how the world works. Got what I deserved, honestly.” The next bit hurt enough that she had to stop. Satan, she’d fucked up. “But, it never should have reached you. I’m sorry.” 

“You didn’t do anything,” he said, intent. “I’ve known the risks we were taking.” 

“And then we made it worse, here. We took it too far.” 

“I don’t regret that.” 

“Neither do I. But, we can’t.” 

Aziraphale didn’t protest, because he had to know she was right. Especially if they made it out the other side of this, and currently their prospects seemed grim, they’d have to be even more careful. But, Crowley still planned to fight. She’d die fighting. 

“I’m going to go find Percival," she said. "Please get out of Berlin.” 


	10. Hab 'n Luftballon gefunden. Denk' an dich und lass' ihn fliegen.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “To win, first you have to know whose side you’re on. In our line of work, that’s right up there with black holes, or ‘to be or not to be.’ You fight the good fight and then one day you wake up and realize that all you were was Satan’s little helper.”
> 
> Aziraphale makes a call. Percival puts on MTV. Crowley has a bad week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this fic! As it’s tagged, the ending to this fic is happy-ish, but there is a full-on-happy-ending one shot (post-bus stop, feat weird, sappy body swap sex) [ added as a close to this series.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22677025)
> 
> Content warning for emetophobia for this final chapter, (there’s no detail beyond a mention of the event and it's a single sentence).

Aziraphale did not get out of Berlin. He went back to his apartment, and he called Percival. He didn’t actually know Percival’s number, but that certainly wasn’t going to stop him. The call went through.

“Yes?”

“Don’t underestimate me, Percival.”

“Oh, Aziraphale, listen to me very carefully. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

“You set me up.”

“You—come on now. This is the game.”

“I know your secrets, Percival. And I can play this game better than you think.”

The angel hung up with a click.

Percival lowered the phone and stared across the room.

* * *

**Hell: Debriefing**

* * *

Crowley’s eyes stung, and he clenched his jaw, willing his tear ducts back in line. Get it together.

* * *

Aziraphale took a fortifying swallow of the scotch he’d poured. He was standing over a spread of photos. There was a way out of this. They’d just have to figure it out, together.

He gathered the pictures up, and put them in an envelope.

* * *

_Percival’s trying to set me up._ Her voice played back to her, over the speakers placed at various points of the open space. 

Crowley walked into Percival’s safehouse with her gun drawn. The lights were off, and the glow from the screens of stacked oscilloscopes cast everything in a shade of ghostly blue. 

_Are you surprised?_

_Not really. These relationships aren’t real, they’re just a means to an end._

A firework went off outside and people cheered and the huge room lit up. She was standing in a storm.

_You don’t mean that._

_Not you._

Crowley didn’t see Percival anywhere. She stopped and opened herself up to anything she could sense. Her powers had revived, but there was no one here.

_You know, when you’re telling the truth, you look different. Your eyes change._

_Thanks for the warning._

_What do you mean?_

_I mean, I better not do it again._

She thought of the earlier part of that night, when she’d told Aziraphale that people can feel and do certain things. Betrayal was in Percival’s basic operating functions. She couldn’t be surprised, even though they'd gotten her. She walked over to their desk.

_Why?_

_Because it’s going to get me killed one day._

A new part of the tape began to play. Crowley picked up a recording device, one of several, left behind on the desk. They’d known she’d come for them—set all this up. What was their next move?

_There’s something I need to tell you. It has to do with your friend Percival, they—_

Crowley froze. Her stomach dropped, as the realization hit her. _Oh._ She set the device down and turned on her heel. _No._ She had to get to Aziraphale.

* * *

Aziraphale felt the demonic presence moments before the wire wrapped tight around his neck. 

He tensed up, surprise and panic and pain freezing him in place for a split second as his hands went up reflexively. The wire was yanked backwards, and it sent him stumbling, as he regained awareness of what was happening and grasped more deliberately at the wire. He leaned forward, off-balancing Percival. Feet tangled with his own and Aziraphale let himself fall backwards, sending both of them into a wall as he tried desperately to get ahold of the wire. His focus had thinned down to that objective, as he tried to slow Percival.

Aziraphale dug against his own throat, pushing viciously at his skin to get his fingers under the wire where it was closer to Percival’s grip—not as taut as the center where it crossed under the larynx. As soon as he got hold of it, he tugged, hard. It snapped. 

Percival fell backwards into a stack of books. Aziraphale nearly went down with them. But, he didn’t. He staggered away. He tried to breathe, gasping and coughing. He considered what his options were. 

He saw just one.

He steadied himself, and turned. 

“Do you know what I was put on Earth to do, Percival?” he said, and he took a step towards the demon.

Percival crab-walked backwards as Aziraphale advanced.

“I was the angel of the Eastern Gate of Eden, a soldier,” he said, voice low. He didn’t say _I was a Principality at the front of the forces which cast you from Heaven_ , but he thought it. He preferred not to think about it.

Percival scrambled to their feet.

“It’s not something I miss, if I’m being honest,” Aziraphale said, his gaze fixed on them—unwavering. A brightness, freezing, was stretching itself out in his corporation: righteous fury. It had been a long time. “But I imagine you didn’t have that information, when you came here thinking I was just going to roll over and discorporate?”

The demon smiled. “You know, I’m normally great at reading people.”

Aziraphale held his hand out. The carving knife that had previously been in a block in the kitchen appeared in his grip. The blade began to glow red, and then with a rush of air, flames danced across it.

“Then I suppose you’ve made a terrible mistake,” he said, like the quietus beneath a wave, like the edge of a cliff, like the end of their days.

Percival’s eyes widened, and they swung their gaze around the room. They ripped the phone beside them out of the wall, and threw it at Aziraphale.

* * *

It took her seconds of terror and panic to remember precisely where Aziraphale’s apartment was, and to blink to the street in front of it. 

She stumbled, as her feet touched the pavement.

* * *

Percival was throwing everything they could get their hands on at Aziraphale: books, chairs, objects d’art.

Aziraphale sidestepped a particularly sizable edition of Proust. It flew past his head and struck a wall. He was waiting for an opening.

Percival swung around, made the mistake of taking his eye off of him. _There_. Aziraphale kicked the coffee table between them over. It caught Percival in the knees and they went down with a shout. They clambered back up, cursing, “Shit!” 

Aziraphale surged forward and stabbed into their torso. They screamed, and a hissing, sizzling sound rose up between the two of them. Aziraphale pulled the knife free, and backhanded Percival. They fell back several feet.

He closed the gap, not giving them time to recover. Percival tried to crawl away, and Aziraphale drove the flaming weapon hard into their upper back. 

Something connected with his temple—sent him reeling and down to the carpet. His vision cut out, for a heartbeat. He crawled away.

He refocused. Percival was contorting, screaming, trying to pull the knife out of their back as it cooked into his shoulder.

The doorbell rang, again and again. They both looked up.

Aziraphale opened his hand, and the knife returned to it. Percival howled as it was ripped out, “Oh, what the FUCK?” even as they stood.

And then, they both realized Percival was in front of window. The demon snapped the glass into pieces, and dove through. Aziraphale ran to try and stop them.

* * *

Crowley pressed the buzzer, frantically. Nothing. _Please, please. Please let him be okay._ Fuck it, she’d apologize later. She miracled it open and bolted for the stairs.

She burst through the door.

The apartment was trashed, there were scorch marks cutting into pieces of furniture, books scattered. 

Aziraphale was sitting against a wall.

Crowley ran to him. She went to her knees. “Angel, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Aziraphale blinked up at him. “No, I’m fine.”

Crowley’s hands fluttered over him, not touching. His clothes were a mess.There were angry marks around his neck, and his hand was bleeding. There was a lot of blood on his sleeve and she couldn’t tell if it was his. A cooking knife lay on the ground beside them. The metal was black, from heat. There was a terrible smell, in the air.

“You are hurt.”

Aziraphale frowned, not seeming to understand, at first. Then, “Oh,” he said. “This is nothing.” He made a small gesture. The marks on his neck began to fade.

“Percival broke a window. Ran off,” Aziraphale said. “They came over with the intent of discorporating me. Maybe more than that. I don’t know. We fought. Obviously.”

* * *

_Celebrations continue in the streets tonight. From the moment the first wave of East Germans crossed into Berlin, they have been showered with champagne and cheered by a crowd of thousands._

Percival was fumbling with bandages around their midsection. “Fucking… fucking blessed weapons, who fucking…”

_It is clear this will be one of Berlin’s most dramatic days._

They reached for a shirt.

_East Berliners are overcome as they cross the border that has been closed to them for 28 years. West Berliners are chipping away at the wall that scarred their city and scaling it._

Putting their coat on took an agonizing minute.

_There is no more interference from the police. Unified, Berliners lay symbols of peace. Thousand of them looking east and chanting, “Down with the wall.”_

They reloaded their pistol.

* * *

Crowley and Aziraphale sat beside each other on the floor.

“You have to go,” Crowley said, for what felt like the hundredth time.

“I can’t leave you to this.”

“I’m—I’m going to destroy them. And Jeremiel, when I can get to him.”

Aziraphale stared at him in shock, disbelief, horror. He looked at Crowley and he was horrified.

Crowley accepted that. She’d never pretended to be anyone she wasn’t, with Aziraphale. “They know, Aziraphale,” she said.

“Surely there must be something you—we can...” Aziraphale couldn’t find the words.

“There isn’t,” she said, softly. “I’ve thought about this.”

There was so much triumph, and relief leaking out around them, from the humans. It was like they were submerged in it. Their presence in this room was an island of grief, and regret, and terror.

“Assuming neither of them tell Heaven or Hell,” she said. “And Percival will, once they’ve cleared their own name—that’s what’s buying us time. But if they don’t, they both hold a guillotine over our necks for the rest of eternity? And if Heaven or Hell finds out… well, you know what Hell would do. I’d never see you again.”

Aziraphale wrung his hands. He ran his thumb over the pads of his fingers where the wire had cut into them. He was quiet.

“So, get out of Berlin,” Crowley said. “Go back to England. Get away from this mess.”

“I’m not going to just leave you. It’s not safe.”

Crowley covered her face. She laughed and, _shit_ , it turned into a sob. “Don’t you get it? You’re the only part of this that matters.” And that was when she couldn’t look at Aziraphale.

Eventually, she heard him whisper, “Alright.” 

He reached out, passed his hand under hers to place it against her cheek. He turned her face towards him.

“But I need to show you something, first.”

* * *

Percival lit a cigarette. 

“There’s only one question left to ask. Who won? And what was the fucking game, anyway?"

* * *

_And I was thinking, the wall will never fall._ —some human being interviewed. 

Back in their safehouse, they’d poured gasoline over a decades worth of life and work. Kurt Loder had been on MTV.

_Germany’s peaceful revolution is probably the political and cultural story of 1989. We’re going to take a quick break, but we’ll be back with an in-depth look at the number one musical controversy of the year—sampling. Is it art, or is it just plagiarism? Don’t go away._

They set it all alight. They stood in their doorway and watched the fire run down and over everything. They watched it all burn.

* * *

“To win, first you have to know whose side you’re on. In our line of work, that’s right up there with black holes, or ‘to be or not to be.’ You fight the good fight and then one day you wake up and realize that all you were was Satan’s little helper.”

* * *

They’d walked outside into the crowds, through the celebration and sledgehammers and cheering. Lights in the sky painted the world as red, and green. They walked away from it.

They went around the back of the building, to their Porsche. One of the tires had a knife sunk into it. They sighed, the kind of sigh where it sounds like you’re breathing out something more than air, and bent over to tug it loose. They dropped it onto the pavement.

With an air of regret, they fished their pack of cigarettes out of their jacket, and pulled one free in their teeth.

* * *

“Ironic. The news will tell them there will be no more secrets. But you and I, we both know that’s not true. The world is run on secrets. Whoever has that list, has power, and without it, you’re just another fucking target.

So what have I learned, after all this time? After all the sleepless nights, lying to friends, lovers, myself? Playing this crooked game in this crooked town, filled with backstabbers and four faced liars? One thing, and one thing only.”

With a smile, they turned, to face Crowley, who was there waiting for them.

“I fucking love Berlin!” Percival screamed.

She shot them.

They doubled over, and couldn’t stay on their feet anymore. They collapsed to the ground, with a groan. The gun they’d tried to draw fell out of their grip.

Crowley walked forward. With her foot, she pushed the weapon out of their reach.

Percival was panting, and Crowley stood over them. 

“You didn’t have to go after him,” she said, and her voice broke, on that.

Percival sneered, and writhed in pain as they rolled up to their side, to better see her. “You what… what… you suddenly decided to develop a conscience after all you’ve done?” 

She just stood there, heartbroken.

“Have you noticed how everyone you get close to ends up fucking dead?” They laughed, then, trembling with it.

“You gave Jeremiel details of the plan. You went to the KGB to take me out. You were too fucking scared to do it yourself.”

“Too smart, more like. And if those KGB pricks had done their part, I’d be on my way to a hand job from Lucifer right now. I’ve read that list, Crowley. And you feature heavily. Turns out you’ve been a very bad demon. Spyglass was a liability to us all. I couldn’t risk leaving him with _you_ ,” they spat.

“Where’s the list, Percival?”

“I don’t have it. I sent it to Hell, where it belongs.”

Crowley stepped forward. She put her foot down on their stomach, really put her weight into it, and they screamed. They grabbed her boot, almost to brace themselves. She noticed their wrist. She bent down to remove the watch.

“Are you going to lie til the very end?” she asked, as she straightened.

Percival laughed, from the ground. “Truth, and lies. Demons like us don’t know the difference.”

“No, we know the difference, Percival.” Crowley reached into her coat pocket. She deposited the watch there, and took out the bottle. “We choose to ignore it.”

She holstered her gun and unscrewed the cap, very carefully. “Isn’t that right, Comrade Satchel?’

Percival’s eyes widened. “So that’s how you’ll make it work.”

“It’s a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver,” she whispered.

They gazed up at her. More than anything else, they seemed impressed. “Well played,” they said, finally.

Crowley emptied the bottle over them.

They spluttered, melted, and Crowley staggered back. The world was spinning. The bottle wasn’t in her hands anymore. Had she dropped it? She stumbled over to a wall and put a hand out to brace herself. Was it on her? Did it get on her? Was this it? She couldn’t breathe. 

She couldn’t breathe.

She threw up.

* * *

Beelzebub leaned forward, beyond furious. “You dezZztroyed Percival? You—killed our head of station, a fellow demon?” Ze was shocked, it was a terrible first. “You better have hard proof and a damn good explanation.”

“Who are you to judge my actions?” 

“I’m your superior.”

Crowley laughed. “My superior? This was never about stopping the Great War. It was about saving your ass,” he hissed. “You couldn’t bear the embarrassment of failures under your command in the Cold War. And I was stupid enough to give my life for it.” 

It was a calculated risk, speaking like this to Beelzebub. But, Crowley had to sell this. Had to stick the landing.

Beelzebub’s jaw tightened. Ze sat back. “Yes. Well, that’s your job, issZn’t it?” ze said.

“I did my job. Despite your best efforts and your incompetence.” Crowley sat up. He reached into his jacket. “I succeeded where you failed. I uncovered your traitor, Satchel. Brought them the only justice they deserved. Extinction.” 

He threw the photos down. “Percival meeting with Jeremiel the day before Spyglass was killed.”

Aziraphale and his photography. He’d seen them together. He’d had his camera with him.

Uriel leaned over, to look more closely.

Crowley produced a tape, and played it for them.

 _“Maybe we can make some sort of, uh, arrangement,”_ said Jeremiel.

Percival: _“You’ve got to know I’m the only demon around who could help you get that list.”_

Crowley had cut the audio together in her hotel room, before coming back. Layered power over it. Made it undetectable as a fake, not that Hell was smart enough to notice either way. Percival might have been a surprise, but Beelzebub and Uriel, he knew. One wouldn’t think to doubt, and one wouldn’t care.

The tape continued.

Jeremiel: _”Very impressive. Dedication, loyalty is very rare these days.”_

Percival: _”It’s a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver. We have a deal?”_

_“What about Hell?”_

Crowley swapped another tape in.

 _“Do you respect Lord Beelzebub?”_ her voice.

Percival’s: _No._

_“What about Lord Dagon?”_

_“Dagon is an arrogant lapdog who understands precisely fuck-all beyond the edge of her desk.”_

Beelzebub stood up, the chair behind zir upturned and clattered over. “Enough!”

“Percival was Satchel,” Crowley said.

Beelzebub paced away. Ze spent moments facing a filthy wall. Ze took a deep breath, and turned around. 

“Where’s the list?” ze whispered. “Where’szZ the list, Crowley?”

Crowley stared at zir, full-on, open. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Where did you get the holy water?” Uriel asked.

“I went back to the building in the East. I suspected there would be some there. I was correct.” 

Aziraphale had done it for him, before Crowley had left. He’d gone quiet, when Crowley asked. But, he’d done it.

“We’re burying thisZz, Crowley,” Beelzebub said. “Your miszZsion never took place. ThesssZe conversations never happened.” 

Ze went to leave, but Uriel reached out to stay zir with a touch to zir wrist. Beelzebub jerked zir hand back out of reach, disgusted.

“Well, first, there’s one more thing he could take care of for us,” Uriel said. She smiled at Crowley. “After what you did to Percival, I’m sure it won’t be a problem. In fact, I think you might enjoy it.”

* * *

**Paris: 3 Days Later**

* * *

Crowley stepped through the hotel suite’s double doors. The red coat she wore danced around her legs, and she smiled at Jeremiel. He’d been eating some sort of fancy dinner, and he stood, when she entered.

“Comrade Satchel,” the angel said. 

“Hello, Jeremiel.” 

They made themselves comfortable—Crowley took off her coat, stretched out on a couch, and a waiter wheeled in some very nice vodka and ice, on a cart. Crowley waited for him to leave, and then took the watch out of her pocket. She held it up for Jeremiel, with a grin.

Jeremiel chuckled to himself. “The list. Good girl.”

She handed it to him, and he put it on his wrist. He walked to the cart, and Crowley stood.

“Allow me,” she said. “Tonight, we’ll celebrate.”

She poured them both a glass, handed one to him, and they clinked them together. She brought hers to her lips, but he didn’t. 

She raised her eyebrows. “Seriously?” She laughed, and knocked the vodka back.

Jeremiel didn’t do anything. Crowley grabbed his tie, playfully, and Jeremiel set his glass back down. He stroked a lock of her hair back, off of her face.

“For a moment, I thought you wanted to kill me,” she said.

And he didn’t protest that. He reached down, took her hand, gave it a gentle squeeze, and he walked away.

“Percival told me all about you,” he said, raising his wrist up to examine the watch. He frowned.

Three men entered the room. Crowley knew they were going to be miracled before she checked and yes, of course they were, great.

Oh, one of them was the neck brace guy. The other two were new. One of them laid a tarp out.

“Be a professional, stand on the plastic,” said Neck Brace, as his series of poor career and life choices culminated. He screwed a silencer onto the pistol he was carrying, and smirked.

Crowley let her hand slip into the bucket of ice, and she closed her grip around the gun she’d hidden there.

She pulled it out, spinning around as she managed to get a shot into the body of each of them, before they could close in on her. She put an additional bullet into one of their heads.

Two more men came through the door, and she dove behind the couch. As they tried to shoot her, and feathers went everywhere, she went to the floor and leaned out around it. She got one in the knee, aimed up to his head—pulled the trigger again. He collapsed at the end of the couch. Crowley took the second one out with a headshot. She’d gotten _a lot_ of practice, recently, and she was putting power behind every fucking bullet.

She grabbed one of the fallen guns, and got to her feet again. The man who’d had the tarp ran towards her, and she shot him in the gut, twice. She picked him up by his shoulder and held him in front of her, and his body jerked from friendly fire as she aimed past him at the remaining man. 

The bullet caught Neck Brace between the eyes and as it exited the back of his head, it sent a wash of blood across the painting behind him.

She threw the man’s body down, and dropped low to take one last shot, at her final target.

Jeremiel stumbled, as blood poured down from his neck. He put a hand up, surprised.

Crowley got to her feet. She walked forward.

Jeremiel fell to his knees, pressing with both of his hands over his rapidly emptying artery. 

“Did you really think I was going to give you that list?” she asked, as she picked her coat up off the couch and draped it over her arm. “Before you die, I want you to get this through your thick, primitive skull.”

She set her gun down on the drink cart, and picked up the vodka. She unscrewed the cap. It made her think of unscrewing the holy water. _Not right now._

“I never worked for you. You worked for me.” She threw some ice into her glass and poured a generous portion. 

“Istasha and I planned it together. Every false piece of intel I fed you, a rip in Heaven’s firmament. Every piece of intel you gave me, a bullet in my fucking gun.”

Jeremiel choked, tried to talk. “Wh—“

“That’s right, you bastard. We,” Crowley grinned. “Were _fucking_ with you.”

She took a long swig of the vodka, and laughed. “And it pains me that she isn’t here now, because Jeremiel, oh, Jeremiel, it gets so much better.”

“I,” he coughed. “What?”

“Heaven knows all about you, Jeremiel. And get this,” she finished the drink, and began to unfold her coat. Only, it wasn’t exactly a coat. It had been, but now it was a bag.

“They _sent_ me.”

Blood was pouring past his lips. He couldn’t talk anymore, but he kept trying.

“I want my life back,” Crowley whispered.

She opened the bag, and the hellfire spun out. It wrapped around the angel, and he screamed as he burned. It was over in seconds.

She sat down on the ground, and closed her eyes.

* * *

**London, 1962**

* * *

“Oh come on, it’ll be hilarious.”

Crowley shook his head, amazed. “How did you even find out about him?”

“I saw him!”

“You saw him?”

She leaned against the bar. “I did,” she said. “In St. Petersburg. Did you know him in Heaven?”

“Vaguely. Unpleasant sort.”

“God, he’s the worst. I think everyone in Heaven finally got tired of him. Which is why this will be so much fun!”

“To pretend to be a double agent?”

“Yes,” she said. “We’ll be able to use it to our advantage, and like I said, it’ll be hilarious.”

Crowley had watched Doctor No about 15 times in the past few months. And he was bored, and Tash was asking, and he was having a nice time. He smiled at her. “Yes.”

* * *

There was housekeeping to do, after that. Crowley took a plane back to London and returned the hellfire to Downstairs. He called Aziraphale, to make sure the angel was still okay. But they mostly avoided each other. The distance helped, in a way. It allowed Crowley to tell himself that things were how they had felt before all of this, like they hadn’t crashed past millennia of caution for one terrifying week, and nearly gotten themselves killed for it.

He’d given Jeremiel a fake watch. Crowley had destroyed the real list before leaving Berlin—dumped the ash and twisted metal into the Spree.

His communications with Hell returned to normal, and he never heard anything about Berlin from them again.

He met with Aziraphale in St. James, a few months later. 

Crowley offered to tell him about the debrief with Hell, and Paris, and Aziraphale nodded, gravely. Crowley told him everything that was left to tell.

“I’m so sorry, Crowley,” Aziraphale said.

And Crowley knew he meant Tash, but that he also meant that he was sorry that Crowley had had to do those things. 

He couldn’t sleep for a long time. When he tried, he kept having dreams about holy water and columns of fire and the humans he’d sent to Hell prematurely.

“Thanks,” he muttered.

In 1991, Aziraphale invited him on a picnic. It was a beautiful day.

Time passed, they fell into their old routines, and the next almost-couple of decades went by smoothly. 

And then Hell handed him an antichrist and suddenly Crowley knew what he had to do. 

And he managed to talk Aziraphale into it.

* * *

**The Dowling’s Estate: 2015**

* * *

It was late, and they were sitting on a couch in Aziraphale’s shed. It shouldn’t have fit, but it did, with room to spare. They were very, very drunk. And Aziraphale looked at Crowley while radiating contentment and asked, “Satchel?”

Crowley didn’t understand at first. “Of what?” she said, from where she’d half slid onto the floor.

“No. Satchel. Why the name Satchel?”

Crowley smiled, then. That filled her with happiness. She was too drunk to be defensive. “The books,” she said.

“The books?” Aziraphale asked, trying to understand.

She got up on her knees, and leaned her elbows on the bottom cushion. She watched Aziraphale think about it—the realization clicked into place. 

“Oh, Crowley,” he breathed, stars in his eyes.

She flopped back down onto the floor. “Shut up,” she said, fondly.

* * *

**The End**

* * *


End file.
